New Mars Forums

I'll give you the solution to the drug problem:

Honest education, and decriminalisation.

Sorry, slightly misread the first time, with regards to acid.

I have no doubt that it exacerbates schizophrenia, but there is a simple reason for that. I know a number of people who suffer with said condition, and some of those indeed smoke pot. (Some probably meaning that only some have admitted it.) Now, the problem is, that the pot 'masks' the symptoms of a number of brain disorders, such as bipolar, bipolar 2, schizophrenia, acute schizoid disorder, and others. Now that is all well and good - but it isn't actually doing anything but treating the symptoms. The cause is not affected, however (the cause being chemical).

What the problem is, is that if you mask the symptoms, the sufferer incorrectly believes that they are 'better' - and thus they do not require their drugs. So they stop taking their drugs, or they go to the doctor, and say 'my dose needs lowering, because my symptoms aren't as bad'. Naturally, they often don't tell the doctor 'Oh, I smoke pot, by the way' - for the obvious reason. I doubt I have to spell /that/ out.

But despite the 'masking' effect, the symptoms are only held at bay as long as tolerance does not build. And it's very hard to keep the dosage correct in order to continue the 'masking' - and doubtless, it isn't healthy. My father, for example, who suffers from bipolar 2, masked his symptoms via the use of pot for nearly thirty - THIRTY - years, but the amount of pot needed versus money available got too high, his usage dropped, and he suffered all the symptoms that had been masked prior. Now, he did have symptoms in those thirty years, but they were very minor ones, relativley speaking. And I've heard from other people that similar circumstances are fairly common.

But the fact remains that when the symptoms return,  they return with a vengeance. That /might/ be due to the pot; or, it might be due to the fact that their condition has been mistreated due to the masking effect for so long that their condition has just progressivley got worse.

Lastly, pot isn't a psycho-active drug. That is, it doesn't interfere with the d-2 receptor's in the brain. Rather, it works on another area of the brain altogether - the same area of the brain that opiates act upon. Opiates do not cause brain damage (see hundreds of thousands of doctors addicted to them with no loss of performance for details).

Now, if opiates don't cause brain damage, and cannabis acts upon the same region of the brain, I fail to see how there is any damage being done.

Oh... and alcohol is just completely different to pot. It actually prevents the lubrication of neural pathways in the brain via the rather unpleasant business of coating them. It actually causes massive neural misfiring - which is why drunk people are prone to vomiting, muscle cramps, poor muscular control, and passing out. The fact is that alcohol is a poison. That is, it is /toxic/ to human beings. Just like nicotine, in that respect. Cannabis isn't.

Simple. 

Okay, so this Bob took LSD but hadn't tried acid? Did I miss something here?

And, just a quick note... pot might have medicinal value for people suffering from such conditions as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and a number of others. It has the property of 'masking' the symptoms of those conditions, to a certain degree. However, once tolerance is built, that ceases, and the symptoms are clear for all to see. I fail to see, however, how the #### (why can't I say ####? - and #### is the word for that place where the bad people go, by the way (no, not Broadmoor, the fiery place with the demons and stuff that Dante went on about)) pot could be responsible for causing any brain disorder.

Now ecstacy, definitley - but even then that is mostly because the 'E's' on the street (according to a recent study here in Britain, at any rate) are often not ecstacy at all, but a mix of other chemicals that gives a similar reaction - but is far cheaper to produce. Also, the 'shrooms. No complaint there.

But pot does not cause neurological damage. Sorry, thats rubbish.

All You Ever Wanted To Know About Cannabis, But Were Lied To About When You Asked:

1. Cannabis is not addictive. You do, however, build a tolerance to it. This means that the longer you smoke/use it, the more you need to ingest to get the same effect. However... thats not entirely true. By varying the 'dosage', tolerance can be avoided entirely. Just like with any drug that isn't addictive. All drugs produce tolerance, however.

2. Cannabis does not kill brain cells. In fact, it only acts on one area of the brain. I'm not sure which part, but this particular area of the brain only reacts to two types of stimulus: the ingestion of opiates or cannabanoids.

3. Cannabis does not impair driving ability. In a study by the DVLA (the British driving watchdog type people, who issue the licenses over here, amongst other things) a number of people were given cannabis, and then put into a simulated driving environment - one group one hour afterwards, another group two hours afterwards. The control was people who hadn't smoked any at all. The results were rather interesting; the first group actually proved to be better drivers than the other two groups, despite slightly slowed reaction times. Due to the fact that they were aware that their reaction times were slower by a couple of microseconds, they concentrated far more on the task at hand - and drove in a safer manner as a result. The British government is, naturally, totally ignoring this study.

4. Cannabis is not a gateway drug. The true gateway drugs are infant painkillers, infant cough mixtures, etc. Quickly followed by stimulant drinks, alcohol, and cigarettes. Look no further for your gateway drugs; anyone who has tried cannabis is guaranteed to have ingested one of those beforehand.

Leaving the numbers behind, and reading the posts on this page... uhm, where to begin?

First of all... pot ain't addictive, my friends. Not in the least. There are no accepted/discovered/confirmed withdrawal symptoms. Like I said much, much earlier - you might suffer from insomnia, but thats not withdrawal. Its a simple case of having been using a relaxant - and then stopping. Naturally, you aren't as relaxed. So it's harder to get to sleep. But that isn't a withdrawal symptom.

Moving away from cannabis - overdoses don't occur because of 'bad gear'. Thats a misnomer. Bad gear kills you because of toxicity, not overdose. Addicts overdose when they quit their drug of choice for a while, fail to quit because of the withdrawals, then take the drug again at the dose they were using at before. And that kills them, because their tolerance to the drug has lowered in the time they've been off of it.

Dealers aren't in the wrong. They are misguided, and poorly educated. And sometimes rather desperate people who have fared just as poorly in the system as the very addicts they sell to. They need care as much as the addicts do, in my opinion.

Alcohol is far more dangerous than cannabis/pot/whatever, but that doesn't mean it should be illegalized.

Prohibition never works.

If you can show me one example of where it has been successful (there is no such place, or time), then I'll agree that it can work.

Oh, and the merchant fleet was scrapped because of political infighting between the eunichs and the confuscian's (I think I spelt that correctly), not because of a lack of resources. China was the richest nation on Earth at the time - by far. They could easily afford the fleet, but the political atmosphere of the day dictated otherwise.

Perhaps I wasn't specific enough. 'Snow glare' was an example only. And I was saying it would be 1000x worse than snow glare simply because snow glare can be escaped - a white sky can't.

I'm hunting for a link to post here that supports what I'm saying, but haven't had luck yet. But I'm pathetic at finding things online quickly, so that doesn't mean all that much.

The problem wouldn't actually be with the colour of the sky, per se. That would be a symptom of the problem, though. The problem would be the little tiny fact that our eyes are adapted to a particular spectrum of light - an atmosphere composed largely of carbon dioxide would produce a different spectrum of light to the one back here on good ol' Terra, where there is a good deal more other junk floating about in our atmosphere. There's already more light in the red wavelength inside Mars' very slight atmosphere, and that in itself would no doubt cause problems with sight.

Am I making sense yet?

I'll get back to you on that link.

Grrr! I'll try again... hopefully my computer won't reboot halfway through me typing this out again.

Right. I did a few quick (and very rough) sums, and figured that it would take 576000000 times more energy than that which was being used by the monitor to propagate its magnetic field to lift a ten-ton space-ship. So... thats rather alot of energy, aye.

I just love the way people almost always ignore the 'white sky' problem. It's fantastic. 

This occurred to me some time ago, but I only thought to investigate the idea recently. I have no idea if anyone else has thought of it, though.

My original question was this:

"Can the Earth's magnetic field be utilized to lift a mass into orbit?"

Now, you may be thinking (unless you've noticed this, too) that this is just bonkers.

But the thing that drove me to wonder is quite simple: I have a small, metal pin resting atop my monitor. Whenever I turn the monitor on, the pin jumps at least two inches into the air. I pondered why.

The pin isn't magnetic. I checked. So it isn't a simple case of opposing magnetic poles.

So I pondered some more.

I remembered that its generally safe to place a floppy disk or VHS video underneath a tv or monitor, because their electro-magnetic field is at its weakest on the side closest to the Earth.

Then I made the assumption (I've yet to check up on this, but the train of thought is just so interesting I had to post this) that the reason for this was simple: the Earth's magnetic field is stronger than that of the tv, and so the shape of the television's magnetic field reflects that.

But why is the pin jumping?

I figured that the reason is simple: the tiny, tiny magnetic field that the pin is producing is being acted on by two much stronger magnetic fields - that of the Earth, and my computer monitor. As the monitor's magnetic field gains strength (ie, additional energy is added to the residual charge that exists in the tube) upon my turning it on, the magnetic field of the monitor extends in an upwards direction counter to that of the Earth - the monitor just doesn't put out enough energy in the form of magnetic radiation to act upon the Earth's many-many magnitudes stronger magnetic field.

The amount of energy supplied to the pin must be tiny indeed, yet it is enough to lift the pin off of the monitor for a small amount of time. Believe me, it really /jumps/.

Unless I recall incorrectly, this is the basic principle behind a compass, is it not?

Anyway, the basic idea is that if a magnetic field of the right properties could be made to be /acted upon/ - not act upon - the Earth's magnetic field, could it be utilized to lift an object into orbit ?

CERN has been producing anti-matter for a number of years, and has only managed to produce a tiny amount. I was going to include an interesting link from their website, but they seem to have replaced it with stuff for schools. Oh well. I'll keep looking, though, because I might be looking in entirely the wrong place (knowing me, I am). I'll post the links when and if I find the pages I'm looking for.

But considering the expense and lack of efficiency of producing anti-matter, and discounting new methods of production, I fail to see how any decent, usable amount of anti-matter could ever be produced for use in space flight - or for any other area of energy production, for that matter. Seems a no-go entirely, to me. (And thats saying something. )

I'm split on the nuclear thing, really.

I'm an avowed environmentalist, and yet, I find that nuclear power is an attractive way to provide energy to the masses.

Yet there are other, equally good ways. There must be balance, I think. Too many nuclear reactors would be counter-productive - the more of them that people see, the more they think about them. And the majority of people are idiots. Sorry if you disagree, but its true.

But still, the figures do show a correlation (admittedly with the ageing power stations we have today, it is no surprise) between say, leukemia (did I spell that right?) and a nuclear power plant being nearby. In fact, I live quite close to a nuclear power plant. Three, actually. Dungeness A, B, and C, are all within fifty to a hundred miles, I'm pretty sure. And over a hundred thousand people live here. None of them care. But there is an increased cancer rate, nonetheless.

All I call for is common sense. Build the power plants out at sea, on oil-rig-esque islands, wherever possible. Ferry the people out in shifts, so they don't have to work there for too long at any one time. Also, you could build tidal generators at the base of these nuclear rigs - further increasing the efficiency. Land based power would then be things like geothermal power, wind power, solar power, and limited fossil fuels for back-up generating. Or am I bonkers?

I think CalTech highlighted the problem with democracy. The state is supposed to act in the way that the majority wish it to act. But the problem is, what the majority wants isn't always correct.

Do you agree or disagree with that statement?