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deathmetal

Lifer
Jul 21, 2015
7,714
32
Smoking rates began to decline in the middle of the last century, with the Baby Boomer interest in health. Nicotine is known to increase focus and increase your cognitive abilities. It’s why writers and computer programmers were all smokers. In fact, STEM fields in the 20th century were dominated by men who chain smoked at their desks. Anyone who has had to sit for hours working a math problem knows how exhausting it can be. Even a small boost in focus has enormous results.
What if the apparent uptick in Western IQ was accelerated by smoking? Tobacco was introduced to the West in the 16th century and its use increased steadily. By the 18th century, the use of tobacco was common. By the 19th century, smoking cigarettes was ubiquitous. Everyone smoked. It also corresponds with the Industrial Revolution. Once tobacco use became universal, Western technological progress took off like a rocket, culminating in a rocket literally taking off and putting men on the moon.
Once the anti-smoking crusades got a purchase in the 60’s and smoking rates declined, it does appear that the West began to decline. Perhaps that small boost to our cognitive ability had a huge impact on our intellectual achievements.
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=10128
There's not much I agree with in this blog post, but this part is great and should be common knowledge.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I think the biological sciences are still in a golden age of incredible discovery that has already changed the species, potentially but not categorically for the better. The kind of bookish, school-centered culture required for this activity has been at least temporarily shoved aside (but not plowed under) by social turbulence and other social tendencies and needs. Fifteen years in a lab to instate a scientific advance doesn't compete with other more temporary hoopla, social media, amplified drama. So if we want IQ and the benefits that accrue, the means are there, but they aren't intensely entertaining on a daily basis, and they require a certain amount of work to understand at all. Some caffeine and tobacco can further the cause, but in moderation. The trick is to perk up the intellect without bogging down the bodily machinery. I think various street drugs and mis-applied prescription drugs are a huge drag on public morale -- that's pretty well established.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Cosmic, uh-oh, afraid I'm culpable in the bored and drowsy effect. Sorry.

 

plugugly

Starting to Get Obsessed
Mar 9, 2015
280
32
I'll go further. Americans in the 40's 50's and 60's ate red meat,and drank and smoked a lot and pretty much crushed every other economy. By the 1980's the economy was sucking wind. But the Japanese were smoking like smoke stacks, drinking HEAVILY as salary men and eating our lunch economically. Today the Chinese are about the heaviest smokers on the planet, import HUGE amounts of beef,corn and seafood and if you don't think They are eating our lunch economically then you haven't looked in your lunch box lately. Coincidence? I don't think so!
Plugugly

 

jvnshr

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 4, 2015
4,616
3,868
Baku, Azerbaijan
Frank Zappa on tobacco (cigarettes)...
"To me cigarette is food..." died of a prostate cancer.
If been following this and other forums for years and so far have found no evidence whatsoever to suggest that smoking makes one more intelligent.
:rofl:
I'll go further. Americans in the 40's 50's and 60's ate red meat,and drank and smoked a lot and pretty much crushed every other economy. By the 1980's the economy was sucking wind. But the Japanese were smoking like smoke stacks, drinking HEAVILY as salary men and eating our lunch economically. Today the Chinese are about the heaviest smokers on the planet, import HUGE amounts of beef,corn and seafood and if you don't think They are eating our lunch economically then you haven't looked in your lunch box lately. Coincidence? I don't think so!
Selection bias. Russia is in top 5 in cigarette smoking and they drink Vodka for breakfast, yet they starve. Most Russians even think that Vodka is the main reason of their current poverty problem. Smoking and drinking doesn't trigger the desire to work. But when you work hard, you look for something that may relieve your stress. South Korea for example, Koreans work at least 10 hours a day and on a Friday night you won't find a single empty table to drink something, all occupied by white-collar workers with loosened ties and midi skirts.

 

tinbird

Lurker
Feb 16, 2017
46
0
Much as I like my occasional drink and smoke, I'd have to disagree and IMHO the reason the west has advanced was due to basic beliefs in personal freedom. This allowed those who are much smarter than myself to think and question and ask, unlike many countries and cultures where this is prohibited.

 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,322
11,081
Maryland
postimg.cc
It sure worked for Zappa.
I'm still waiting for my IQ to punch thru the roof. I'm afraid if it eventually works, my case will be more like Charly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asuxQm1zu3g

 
Ha ha, yeh the problem with being really smart is that you realize that you're just a rat in a maze. Then comes enlightenment, and I've seen those guys in parks digging in dumpsters and sleeping on the streets. Me, give me the red pill and let me be a battery for the machines while living in Wonderland. I don't care anything at all about the true nature of the Mattix.

 

jvnshr

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 4, 2015
4,616
3,868
Baku, Azerbaijan
I smoked the last bowl of Dunhill RY this morning and finished the tin I had. I am not not enlightened but brightened, what a nice blend to start the morning.

 

deathmetal

Lifer
Jul 21, 2015
7,714
32
I don't care anything at all about the true nature of the Mattix.
I do, but only in a sense of reverence for this world we have been given. As far as the silly movie goes, it is metaphor. Sort of like Plato's cave translated into a simple form, when with a few hours of thought and a pipe, we can see both the deception in our human world, and hints of a more metaphysical grounding to the larger world in which we attempt to survive. It helps to have a few tins of Royal Yacht around. I doubt Stalin smoked it, but I believe the enlightened might.

 

phantomwolf

Starting to Get Obsessed
Apr 14, 2017
266
1
Pittsburgh, PA
It has certainly been proven that stimulants increase focus (especially in performance of left-brain tasks), but as a smoker I always felt it was a can of worms. Once one is addicted, a smoker essentially has a handicap, as I'm sure the withdrawal a smoker experiences every 30-45 minutes is far more of a detriment than the temporary gains of the nicotine. For me anyway.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I think discovering the matrix just leads to discovering the matrix's matrix, and so on. Has anyone seen those charts with the known chemical interactions in the body? It covers the wall like a detailed map of the world, but in small print, and only has those interactions that we know. Each square foot of the chart would probably break down into another chart of equal wall-map size. This can fill you with dread or pleasure, depending on how you see it.

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,570
27,077
Carmel Valley, CA
Once one is addicted, a smoker essentially has a handicap, as I'm sure the withdrawal a smoker experiences every 30-45 minutes is far more of a detriment than the temporary gains of the nicotine. For me anyway.
The premise of one being addicted to pipe smoking is tenuous. I've stopped smoking a pipe for periods of a day or two to over a month, with no deleterious effects whatsoever. And at the time I had been smoking ~ ten bowls a day.

 
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