[katyseagull]

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However, greater powers of perception and higher levels of intelligence are not the same thing. Intelligence can be seen as a malleable entity, not a static system like a car engine where the oil pressure will be such and such a value, and the gear ratio will be at some other value. IQ is one of the terms used by psychometricists to quantify their science; it is not a purely objective thing as say your abilities of hearing are.

The decision to do or not to do some drug seems to me to be an ethical situation. I see every situation where there is an oppurtunity to use one's power of decision as an ethical situation. How on earth could you say this isn;t one? I have an extremely addictive personality, and thankfully was scared away from hard drugs by the death of my father from drugs, this and watching my mother act like she was out of her mind told me clearly that it was not for me.



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Very interesting post. I appreciate hearing your take on this question. Like I said, I know several highly intelligent people who enjoy pill popping and mixing pills with alcohol. I have never understood why they would do such a risky thing. It doesn't take much education at all to understand the danger of overusing prescription drugs and yet many people do it. Many extremely smart people. I'm with Blarg though, I'm not sure I associate ethics with this behavior.


I'm not a pill popper. I have a huge distrust of pills. I'm freaked out by the continuing practice of doctors to over prescribe medicine to patients. I'm also weirded out by my friends, both in real life and also on the internet, who pop pills like they were candy, who get excited about getting their hands on someone else's pain pills like oxycontin (or, alternatively, Ambien or muscle relaxers or whatever the case may be).

I would bet there are quite a few bright 2+2 posters who are pill poppers. In my experience it is more often bright men who do this. Now why is that? As for girls, I guess I always thought only dumb girls did this but then again isn't Lindsay Lohan supposed to be bright? And Winona Ryder is supposed to be bright too. Hmm. What does it all mean? I think my sample size is too small.

You associate the practice with lack of ethics and has nothing at all to do with IQ. Interesting. My point was that if you are so smart, theoretically wouldn't you realize the consequences of mixing drugs with alcohol?

Maybe bright pill popping guys are tortured souls, self medicating to calm their over active minds or maybe they are bored addicts who need some kind of buzz in their life to make them feel more alive. Not sure. I would hope that a genius would be worried about destroying his body.