I have a theory about intelligence and intellect, maybe it's all bunk and the rantings of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, but I still like to think about it.

I think that some intelligence is more or less "manufactured", in the sense that children are forced to learn massive amounts of information in a very short amount of time, cramming entire languages and theories behind mathematics down their throats in a years time, and more or less becoming "smart". It seems like a lot of Southeastern Asian countries do this to their "brightest" students, including China, South Korea, and India. A lot of this ties into the competition that stems from such a type of education, so keep that in mind while reading this.

However, I believe that this type of learning is just absolutely useless. It doesn't teach or develop any kind of abstraction, rather, it just asks students to regurgitate their learned and studied materials onto a few tests that determine the direction of your life. It just seems to me that these kids seem to only know "stuff". And like it's obviously important to know stuff, that's just kind of an accepted way of life, but I believe that forced schooling and forced learning (to the extent that some countries do it) are extremely toxic to a developing child and teenager's mind.

I've seen a few documentaries on such types of schooling, and seems like an alarmingly large amount of the kids don't have any sort of social development in any way, as they're also being forced into learning the moment they leave school for the day. I think it's rather a negative form of development that sort of gives kids the skills to excel in subjects and fields, but they don't have the social ability to connect with their colleagues and higher ups, and this in turn actually limits their ability to more or less "climb the ladder". It's like they're trying to avoid being unsuccessful in life, but in their massive attempts to do so, some of them actually get s...

I recently had a few recovering heroin and pill addicts enter my life, and it may have been one of the most eye opening experiences I've ever had. I haven't seen withdrawals, but I saw one of my most supportive friends sit in a shower for close to 4-5 hours, as it was the closest thing to a relief from the chills that they could get. I saw panic attacks that rivaled the worst I've ever seen, complete with spiking blood pressure and heart rate, and near inability to breathe. Those are only a few things, but it's just so scary. My father was prescribed an opioid for his colon issues, and immediately declined, because he had dealt with an addiction to a specific OTC opioid used for that exact reason about 20-30 years earlier. It's really bad when someone would rather face crippling pain over a just the possibility to addiction.

The problem with opioid painkillers is that they're just too damn effective. Opioids do their thing by bonding to opioid receptors in the Brain, CNS, and digestive tract (that's one reason why opioid use causes constipation). Receptors, when activated, especially the mu and delta varieties, offer very strong analgesic effects, but are also related to euphoria, an anti-depressant type feeling, and are thought to also increase physical dependence. Anyways, these receptors more or less have the ability to simply stop pain transmission to the brain. Anyone who has had morphine, Vicodin, Hydrocodone, or any of the dozens of other opioids can testify to their effectiveness

So it's pretty easy to see why they can be so addictive, you have the psychological dependency stemming from the euphoria and anti-depressant effects, and you also get a physical dependency. It's really shitty for anyone who is prescribed a medication, because there's not necessarily a requirement for doctors to oversee administration or to provide further prescriptions at lower doses to help lower physical dependency.

But acetaminophen and other drugs simply don't stand up to opioids, as they don't bind to a receptor that blocks pain so effectively. Rather, they inhibit the activities of COX and COX-2, which both tend to cause pain. Acetaminophen is more or less a "whole body drug" as it is distributed throughout the body.

But anyways, we just don't have nearly enough painkillers in our arsenal, and it really sucks because opioids are so dangerous and yet so effective.

So the F.D.A. can't just stop the acceptance of new opioids, because that would be rather irresponsible for people that actually require self-administrated pain relief.

He sounds like a chipmunk for very good reason, the nitrogen-oxygen mix of air that we breathe is rather toxic under high pressure.

The condition is called nitrogen narcosis, and it's a sort of anesthetic like effect that overcomes the diver. The effects are similar to being rather drunk, so it's kind of dangerous to have a diver in such a state.

Helium and Neon are the only known breathable gases that don't cause some sort of narcosis at high pressure, and helium is largely used in mixtures, known as either trimix or heliox. Trimix is a mixture of helium, oxygen, and nitrogen, and heliox is a mixture of helium and oxygen.

Also, divers can't use pure molecular oxygen at elevated pressures because they'll develop a condition called oxygen toxicity, which can lead to cell death in severe cases. Mixtures have to be used to prevent too much oxygen from being breathed in at once. Deep sea dives can be very complicated ordeals that require quite a bit of training, prep, and responsibility, as you can see.

But yeah, the reason he sounds like a chipmunk is because he's breathing a mixture of oxygen and helium, and maybe nitrogen.