English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Saladin

14:00

@zoe what does your name mean?

Zoe

!!define Zoe

Jarvis the Bot

@Zoe Zoe A female given name, a common spelling variant of Zoë.

kwak

@Saladin I guess you smoke, since you didn't answer when I asked it?

Zoe

!!define life

Saladin

@zoe i don't want to talk to you through a BOT

Jarvis the Bot

14:01

@Zoe life The state that follows birth, and precedes death; the state of being alive and living.

Saladin

its pretty insulting:(

Zoe

I think you meant sarcastic.

Saladin

!!define saladin

Jarvis the Bot

@Saladin No definition found.

kwak

@Saladin What is the Quran saying about smoking?

Cerberus

14:02

!!wiki saladin

terdon

@kwak What is it you have with smoking today?

Jarvis the Bot

Saladin

Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (Arabic: صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب‎; Kurdish: سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی , Selahedînê Eyûbî) (1137/1138 – March 4, 1193), better known in the Western world as Saladin, was the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim opposition to the European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, Yemen, and other parts of North Africa. Originally sent to Fatimid Egypt by his Zengid lord Nur ad-Din in 1163, Saladin climbed the ranks of the...

Saladin

@kwak not sure

kwak

@terdon a lot of fear

terdon

@kwak Huh?

kwak

14:03

like a fish of being out of water

Saladin

here we go:)

Cerberus

Smoking is good if you want lung cancer.

kwak

@Cerberus not just that

Cerberus

Not just that.

kwak

it hits neurons

Zoe

14:03

Smoking is good because smokers never grow old.

Saladin

if tobacco industries can be tamed to level of non-existence why not pepsi?

and bloody stupid energy drinks

Cerberus

Pepsi is less harmful.

Saladin

!!puke red-bulls

Jarvis the Bot

@Saladin Were you trying to invoke me? Maybe you meant: nuke

kwak

@Zoe yeah, it accelerates oldness rather

terdon

14:04

@kwak Huh? That, as far as I know, is actually one of the very few things it does not do. It even has a protective effect from Alzheimer's.

Saladin

no its not'

destroy bones

RegDwigнt

Not smoking is detrimental to your health. In fact, if you do not smoke, you will die.

Cerberus

Seriously??

terdon

Exactly.

Cerberus

Then I must start now.

Saladin

14:05

@zoe smokes?

Cerberus

I need a fag.

7

RegDwigнt

Resists joke featuring the words "you", "are".

kwak

@terdon some of the molecules might help against Alzheimer, and it would be much better to take those molecules without smoking

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt You win the grand originality prize.

kwak

like THC and cannabisoids that can have respectable effects for people and their suffering, they just should smoke it, but eat it, because of all the adverse effects of smoking

RegDwigнt

14:06

@Cerberus thank you! My shelf is bursting.

terdon

@kwak Perhaps, though that's harder than you might think, but that doesn't mean that snoking "attacks neurons".

By the way, relevant:

►

Cerberus

@terdon It protects against Alzheimer because it kills people before they generally get it?

Saladin

@zoe

kwak

!!wiki snoking

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus and that is not a working protection how?

Jarvis the Bot

14:07

@kwak It means I ain't got time to learn your $5 words

terdon

@Cerberus That is a possibility. We don't really know. Point is, I know of no research that suggests that smoking will affect neurons.

Jarvis the Bot

@kwak No result found

Saladin

someone starred @kitfox lube message anyone has a back story? please

kwak

oops smoke... I though snoking was smoking but in fewer quantity

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt At least your shelf will be capable of supporting all those prizes, since they are all plastic or inflatable.

@RegDwigнt I know!

Zoe

14:08

@Saladin What?

Cerberus

@terdon Oh, I thought you meant there was a real protective effect?

Saladin

@zoe i wanted to talk to you...

Zoe

I cannot incomplee senten

@Saladin You wanted? I guess you don't want to now?

kwak

@terdon It has been proven to have a huge Placebo effect

smoking has only negative effects, but people smoking feel wrongly they enhance their potential

terdon

@Cerberus That kind of thing is always tricky. It is very hard to define. What we know is that there is a reverse co-morbididy between smoking and Alzheimer's. They co-occur much less than expected by chance.

Saladin

14:09

@zoe what is your work like?

terdon

@kwak Not true unfortunately. If it were, people would not smoke.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus smoking marijuana has just been legalized in Germany, for its protective effects, as I am sure you will know.

terdon

It has some very good mild stimulant effects. However, they come at a serious cost.

@RegDwigнt It's been legal there for at least 15 years. I had a friend in university who's Dad had a prescription.

Cerberus

@terdon Ah OK, well, if that is all, then at least a huge part of that will be just people dying younger.

@RegDwigнt Oh, really? It wasn't in the papers! I had already been decriminalized, right?

terdon

@Cerberus Perhaps, I'd have to read the papers to be sure. There may very well be other reasons though, it is a stimulant.

RegDwigнt

14:11

@terdon point is, it's more legal still with the new law, not less.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt The chief protective effect will be protection from police intervention now that it's legal.

Cerberus

@terdon There may be. I'm just saying that stat, as you present it, tells me little.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus they now legalized actually growing it, if you are a qualified patient.

terdon

@RegDwigнt Good. Anything that goes against the ridiculous notion of making drugs illegal is fine by me.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Oh, good. How many plants?

terdon

14:12

@Cerberus Fair enough, it was used as an argument against a baseless claim stated earlier.

Cerberus

It's 5 plants here, I think. But you don't need any qualifications/licence.

@terdon Haha OK.

Saladin

!!sleep zoe

Jarvis the Bot

@Saladin I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean. Use the !!/help command to learn more.

Cerberus

Aww that is kind of cute.

kwak

@terdon people smoke because it got to the industrial consumption level in the 19th century, and 20th, with its addictivity power, and its good press untill 1980/1990, now that it has been shown to be harmful, it might decrease, and people might find much better way to concentrate

Zoe

14:12

@Saladin I am a tutor in a group tuition centre.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto not that anyone here needs protection from police intervention. I told you about my only encounter with the police, when they thought I had just robbed a gas station and was carrying a concealed weapon.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Remind me.

Saladin

oh nice @zoe

Zoe

I was reading ELL and sigh at the amount of correction I am too lazy to do.

Cerberus

@kwak It is already decreasing in the West. Just like Christianity.

kwak

14:13

@Cerberus yes fortunately

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

OMG a bunny and squirrel are playing tag in my yard

Saladin

@zoe Singapore is a pretty nice place to live in

Cerberus

I know.

terdon

@kwak All true. That does not mean it has "no beneficial effects". Hell, heroin has beneficial effects, that's no reason to defend it.

Zoe

@Saladin I do not think so.

Anyway, I am going to watch TLoK. BB

terdon

14:14

@Cerberus I'd take smoking over religion any day. It kills fewer people for starters.

Cerberus

kwak

ok

the light blue one looks like a Gaussian

Cerberus

@terdon And yet religion can also be healthy for you. It works as a kind of placebo or a drug.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto They basically told be, can we have a look at your papers, and then patiently let me rummage through my rucksack, in which for all I understand they had to suspect a gun, and then spent half an hour trying to spell my name into their radio, and then said "good night".

I was not tazed or yelled at.

terdon

@Cerberus Hmm... opium, masses etc?

RegDwigнt

14:16

And that's on an occasion in which my description fit that of an armed robber.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Do you have a Russian or German passport. ( I suspect the former, since they had trouble with the Buchstabierung.)

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Odd. Was everyone made to do this who came by a certain area or something?

RegDwigнt

The name is in Cyrillic and Latin, but it doesn't help one bit with how unwieldly it is.

Cerberus

@terdon Kind of. If you think the little woman in the lake will take care of you in the afterlife, it is easier to endure the vicissitudes of life. It improves your mental state.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus they were patrolling the streets around the gas station in their car, on the lookout for someone my height and with a black rucksack.

Cerberus

14:18

I see.

terdon

@Cerberus I never bought that. To me, the opposite makes more sense. It's easy to ignore your life and accept crap "because afterlife".

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt I guess you just looked too civilized.

RegDwigнt

Also, in fact I behaved laughingly suspicious when I saw the car.

Cerberus

@terdon But you will be happier with the crap.

kwak

well I dream of the day cigarettes will be an illegal drug

terdon

14:20

@Cerberus Again, never been sure of that. I'd rather be happy 'cause my life is good than because my after life will be.

RegDwigнt

Like, I wanted to buy smokes from a vending machine, but I was only just approaching it, then looked over my shoulder, saw their car, looked away again and then started inserting coins. To them it must have looked like I was all "hey don't look at me I am totally innocent I am just, um, er, oh hey here's a Zigarettenautomat, I just wanted to get a pack of those, right!"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon ugh, don't remind me. I have a friend whose philosophy is "I must have done something terrible in a past life to deserve all the suffering I'm going through now".

kwak

@RegDwigнt cigarette buyers are not fully innocents

terdon

@kwak Why in the world would you do that? That would just make the mob profit from them, selling crappy quality and further increasing their danger to the general population and will not in any way make them harder to find. Just look at how well the "war" on drugs or the prohibition worked.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And are they happy?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon No. She's miserable. Truly suffering.

kwak

14:21

@terdon because it's harmful to people around smokers

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus they basically just wanted to know if I lived there. I couldn't show them any proof because only German ID cards have your living address on them, but I had no German ID card (and still don't), just my travel passport, in which of course there's no indication of where you're currently staying.

kwak

I don't care of the health of smokers of course, just the one of people nearby

Cerberus

@terdon That is like saying, "this placebo I have here will probably not work for me".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But my point is that she accepts her suffering, instead of taking control of her life and trying to fix her situation, which is not beyond repair.

RegDwigнt

So they just checked back with their HQ where I was registered, saw that it was one street away, and let me go.

terdon

14:22

@kwak So? How will making it illegal help? Making it illegal will only increase the "cool factor", leading more people to start.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Hmm because a robber wouldn't rob a petrol station near his house?

terdon

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's religion for you.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus no, because they now knew where I lived, robber or not.

terdon

@Cerberus Well yes. Also, even if it does work, it means I will have accepted my lot rather than fixing it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@terdon Buddhism, in fact. One of the religions many people like to point out is "fine", not harmful like some others, yadda yadda.

Cerberus

14:23

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hey, if that makes it easier for him to bear his fate...

terdon

@Cerberus Change it dammit, don't bear it.

kwak

@terdon it will help, people will have more the feeling to smoke a bomb than smoking an incense

(even if incense are also harmful, but that's not as if 1.1 billion people were holding incense everywhere)

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 @terdon Right, that is an imporant disadvantage to religion. But some people are capable of being affected mainly by the positive effects on their own mental health without becoming like that.

terdon

@kwak Don't see why. It never has in the past. Many countries have stupid laws that make prostitution illegal. Do you think they have fewer prostitutes? Do you think those prostitutes are safer? Making things illegal is almost never the right way of dealing with them.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Hmmmmm I see.

RegDwigнt

14:25

I am certain they wrote it down in some protocol later that night.

"Met people X Y and Z fitting the description, they live at A B and C".

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus All the religions that preach about an afterlife or a fate corrupt your thinking. There is no fate, there is no afterlife. Take control of the one life you have now; direct your fate. Some people have it easier than others, but if you wait for a reward in the next life, you're a sucker.

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 awwww

terdon

@Cerberus Good for them but there are better ways to feel good about yourself that don't include self delusion and are not amenable to get people riled up enough to start killing thousands of others.

Cerberus

@terdon I am glad I can leave Kwak in your good care, I wouldn't be able to say it any better.

kwak

@terdon no, but at least informing people of the danger with death signs everywhere, and make them feel more guilty :)

terdon

14:26

@Cerberus We've had this conversation before you and I :)

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But sometimes a happier sucker.

terdon

@kwak I'm all for that! It takes a special kind of idiot to smoke.

kwak

There are still people smoking with the mind image of 20t century scientists who smoke

terdon

@kwak Heh, I'm a professional biologist and I smoke :)

RegDwigнt

@kwak actually incense is just as bad for your health. It's the byproducts of the burning that cause cancer, not the nicotine.

kwak

14:27

But that's totally wrong, smoking never helped any scientist

terdon

@RegDwigнt YES

RegDwigнt

You get the exact same byproducts from potato chips and steak.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, sometimes it makes a sucker who thinks they'll be happy sometime, so it's okay for them to be unhappy now.

terdon

@kwak Helped me. I would never have written my PhD without regular nicotine hits.

kwak

@terdon but you will stop soon

Cerberus

14:28

@terdon For example, do you think it is good for someone to realise that she is ugly and is in a bad position in the dating market, or would you rather she kept thinking it was just bad luck every time and have her self-image damaged less? Sometimes, it is better to know the truth; at other times, it is not. It all depends. You should not religionize "truth" as some Holy Good.

@terdon I know, more or less.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my new friend

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But that in itself constitutes greater happiness now, the prospect of good things in the future.

Cute!

Okay, shower time.

Later!

terdon

@kwak Not unless people stop throwing silly arguments around. There are some very good ones but the holier than thou attitude and eternal life fantasies of non-smokers bug the hell out of me. I sometimes think that I, like Bill HIcks, smoke out of spite alone.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Greater happiness than they would get if they exhibited even a shred of empowerment and attempted to make things better? I doubt it.

terdon

@Cerberus I think it is better for her or him to realize that one can be ugly and still be attractive.

kwak

14:32

@terdon again, Placebo, you could have chewed gums, drunk coffee, or whatever

Artists/writers are often associated with smoking

again Placebo, there must be fantastic writers who are non smoker

Placebo + destroying effect = Destoyebo

terdon

@kwak Of course. There are also great writers who are antisemitic racists (Pound and Elliot off the top of my head). That doesn't mean you need to be one to be good.

Also, you don't understand what placebo means.

Smoking is in no way a placebo, nicotine-less cigarettes are.

kwak

@terdon :))

@terdon I mean a Placebo for concentration

terdon

@kwak Not at all. That's what nicotine does, no placebo there.

kwak

oh

so if people just ate their nicotine, it ould be great, without intoxicating us

RegDwigнt

@kwak oh like the glucose pills everyone else is taking, or coffee?

Saladin

14:36

@zoe

you there

RegDwigнt

People will take all kind of stupid shit to pretend it helps them. It's just that some of the shit happens to be socially acceptable, like coffee.

terdon

@kwak Probably not, eating/smoking/snorting activate very different metabolic pathways, I don't know if the effect would be the same. In the case of nicotine it very probably would be broken down in the stomach.

RegDwigнt

Coffee has like 300 ingredients, and for 299 of them we don't fully understand what the hell they even do to our bodies. The remaining one being water.

Saladin

@RegDwigнt you coffee-maker?

RegDwigнt

No, I teapot.

Saladin

14:39

i like to have hot cup of black tea please :)

terdon

@RegDwigнt Which, oddly enough, is an extremely toxic substance since it is a very powerful inorganic solvent.

RegDwigнt

Well, don't get me started on that.

terdon

@RegDwigнt And which of the above statements does not apply to the very addictive drug called tea?

RegDwigнt

Everything is toxic if you take too much of it. That is what "too much" means.

terdon

Heh. True but water and oxygen particularly so. We just have a lot of uses for them. If any aliens ever turn up, they'll be shocked.

RegDwigнt

14:41

@terdon I didn't mean to say I was drinking tea. I was making a joke. He asked me if I was a machine, and I answered that I was a piece of China.

terdon

I really don't know if coffee is more harmful than tea. I'd guess that it just depends on how much caffeine/theanine you have in them.

@RegDwigнt Oh? Which province?

Sorry, couldn't resist that one.

RegDwigнt

Tibet, of course.

terdon

Ha!

RegDwigнt

Couldn't resist that one.

terdon

:)

RegDwigнt

14:43

Though it is closer to Darjeeling and Ceylon than the rest.

kwak

@terdon injection then

Robusto

Coffee is just fine.

kwak

people with syringes in the street, that would be more reassuring than smoke

terdon

@kwak Same issue, different methods of delivery have different effects. It allk depends on what you're taking.

kwak

grrr, there must be a non-polluting way of taking nicotine

RegDwigнt

14:44

@Robusto !!wiki kopi luwak

!!wiki kopi luwak

Jarvis the Bot

Kopi Luwak

Kopi luwak (Indonesian pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee, refers to the seeds of coffee berries once they have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The name is also used for marketing brewed coffee made from the beans. Producers of the coffee beans argue that the process may improve coffee through two mechanisms, selection and digestion. Selection occurs if the civets choose to eat coffee berries containing better beans. Digestive mechanisms may improve the flavor profile of the coffee beans that have been eaten. The civet eats the berries...

Robusto

I don't drink civet shit coffee.

RegDwigнt

But it's the best. Everyone will tell you that.

Robusto

Well, I'll never know, will I?

terdon

I've always wanted to try that.

RegDwigнt

14:46

Do you resist bee shit, too?

Most people totally love it.

terdon

@Robusto I take it you don't eat eggs or honey or wear silk either then?

jinx

Robusto

> Sewer rat might taste like punkin pie but I'll never know cuz I'll never eat the filthy motherfucker.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwigнt puke. it comes from their mouths

kwak

@RegDwigнt honey?

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Honey is not bee shit. It's bee puke. But no, I don't eat honey either.

terdon

14:47

@MattЭллен Orthogonal.

kwak

i don't eat it often, but that's sweet, orthogonally sweet to cigarette smokes

RegDwigнt

@MattЭллен it actually comes out from all body openings they can find, and is then mixed together in the most sado-maso cocktail ever.

Robusto

@terdon None of those are shit.

RegDwigнt

They store it in their legs too.

Robusto

That's pollen.

terdon

14:48

@Robusto Well, eggs is pushing it, the beasties only have one multifunctional hole after all.

Robusto

I never looked. Don't care, either.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto they still put it into the final product.

terdon

Anyway, all the water you've ever drunk has probably gone through several digestive systems. Same goes for the water in your whiskey. Or whisky.

Robusto

Wevs. Not concerned. Still won't drink civet shit coffee, tyvm.

RegDwigнt

No wonder, seeing how whisky is the exact same word.

Matt Эллен

14:49

@terdon scalene

RegDwigнt

May 20 '13 at 22:15, by RegDwighт

@TomW well then be informed that water, vodka, Undine, hydrant, whiskey, and wet are all the same word.

Robusto

@terdon Why don't you just go write a book about that. You can call it Disgusting Science Facts.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto you are like the only other person on this planet who doesn't. We should be friends and hang out in a sect.

@Robusto that's called Skeptics.SE.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Or a sector.

terdon

@Robusto Awww, did I spoil your dram?

RegDwigнt

14:51

Sector ventor non studit libentur.

Robusto

@terdon Or call it Bum You Out Science.

RegDwigнt

Or just 100 Uses for a Wii.

terdon

I see what you did there.

@RegDwigнt Brilliant! Indeed :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> In the coffee industry kopi luwak is widely regarded as a gimmick or novelty item.The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) states that there is a "general consensus within the industry ... it just tastes bad". A coffee professional cited in the SCAA article was able to compare the same beans with and without the kopi luwak process using a rigorous coffee cupping evaluation. He concluded: "it was apparent that Luwak coffee sold for the story, not superior quality...
Using the SCAA cupping scale, the Luwak scored two points below the lowest of the other three coffees. It would app…

tldr: "it just tastes bad"

RegDwigнt

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 to be fair, that is the exact process by which Bud Light happened.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

14:55

@RegDwigнt a marketing gimmick involving exotic animals eating, then passing, some other kind of beer?

Matt Эллен

regular bud, drunk by skunks and then expressed when you scare them

RegDwigнt

No, cutting off the edges till absolutely no one objects to anything, so it has less taste than water.

It's called an acquired taste for a reason, but rather than letting people acquire it, they dumb it down to cater to them. Kind of what they do with the education system.

kwak

@terdon But seriously I've been diagnosed hebephrenia by a psychiatrist, it's focused on smokers, I really can't approach a smokers inside/outside. Depending in the wind direction I might get close enough to talk

terdon

Anything you do to Bud beer would probably improve it though.

RegDwigнt

Start by not drinking it. Huge improvement on the spot.

terdon

14:59

@kwak That sounds awful.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…