"Drugs are for mugs"

I don't trust people to know what's best for them; just think how stupid the average person is, and realise that half are even dumber than that.

If drugs weren't illegal, then I would probably condone them for artists. I mean, who cared if they have negative side effects, they are only artists.

IME, drugs are great fun, and certain ones in certain situations can really open your eyes to thoughts and things in life that you usually shut out. I think that's why they lend themselves naturally to creative arts. They can be a terrific tool for expanding your mind, bonding with others, or just staying up for two days straight and letting the delirium write your songs for you.

However no drug, has ever turned someone into something they weren't already in terms of intellect and talent. You can't drop acid and suddenly become a musical savant, or take coke and scribble down a solution to the collatz conjecture. So it's a little disingenuous to attribute all the masterpieces of those who took drugs, to the drugs themselves, although they can certainly help some creative processes.

Point being you can be a mug for taking drugs because you expect them to augment the person you are and your abilities. And it isn't anti-intellectual to say so. Because for every David Bowie, there's a thousand dead musicians who got caught up in the grand storm of drug abuse thinking codeine or heroin would give them that 'artists grit'.

I agree with this. But it doesn't refute my point that clearly the idea that only unintelligent wasters take drugs is idiotic, and that one would actually have to severely lack knowledge to think so.

No, it's pointing out lots of people who clearly aren't mugs who took drugs, thus refuting the idea that "drugs are for mugs". Pretty simple stuff really.

Then I guess dropping out of uni isn't a bad thing cause Mark Zuckerburg did it and is rich then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

That logic has... absolutely no relevance to the point I'm making.

It does, Then again, i'm not taking a slogan designed to be catchy and not taken literally seriously

Well I totally agree with you that it is indeed simply not true that only 'unintelligent wasters' take drugs. But to call others 'idiotic' and that they 'severely lack knowledge' is just as dogmatic, snooty and ignorant an opinion as 'drugs are for mugs'.

Explain how it's relevant. I refuted the fact that some people think that drug users are all unintelligent by pointing to a number of very famous intelligent, or at least highly talented, people. I did not say that taking drugs will turn you into an intelligent or talented person, or that they will make you the next Steve Jobs, so your point is utterly irrelevant.

Anyone who says this phrase with any amount of seriousness is surely a philistine, an anti-intellectual, and someone severely lacking in knowledge. How can anyone claim this when Berlioz wrote at least a portion of his famous "Symphony Fantastique" whilst high on opium, Coleridge wrote the "Kubla Khan" after an opium influenced dream, Francis Crick used acid, Freud snorted large amounts of coke, Steve Jobs dropped acid, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" on a six day coke binge, and there are countless other drug using geniuses like Baudelaire, Aldous Huxley, Philip K Dick, Hunter Thompson, William Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Plant, Charlie Parker, Martin Scorsese... the list is endless...

nor did i?
I said saying that Smart people took drugs therefore drugs aren't for mugs
is like me saying Smart people dropped out of university, therefore University is useless.

both statements are taking a minority and using it to disprove a phrase with a simplified version of a bigger argument.

so when do we see your next thread: "Re: Winners don't do Drugs"

not like I agree with 'Drugs are for mugs' I just find your reasoning is just silly

Sure these people were aided by drugs but these "geniuses" are in the minority. When it comes to the general population drugs are for mugs.

Do you make all these profile pics yourself?


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Well, they are clearly lacking in knowledge if they are not informed, and they clearly aren't, or they would be aware of the various people I listed in my post who took drugs and cannot be considered "mugs".

Probably is his quote, yes.

Who does? Probably, in the distant future, a supercomputer, like in some of Asimov's short stories. In the near future, there should probably be a council of social scientists, economists, statisticians, etc., elected by the population, with votes weighted by the voter's knowledge and intelligence.

I believe that is called a Technocracy.

obviously