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Silicon Valley Avant-garde Have Turned To LSD in a Bid To Increase Their Productivity (1843magazine.com)
Every three days Nathan (not his real name), a 27-year-old venture capitalist in San Francisco, ingests 15 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide (commonly known as LSD or acid). From a story on 1843 Magazine: From the start, a small but significant crossover existed between those who were experimenting with drugs and the burgeoning tech community in San Francisco. "There were a group of engineers who believed there was a causal connection between creativity and LSD," recalls John Markoff, whose 2005 book, "What the Dormouse Said", traces the development of the personal-computer industry through 1960s counterculture. At one research centre in Menlo Park over 350 people -- particularly scientists, engineers and architects -- took part in experiments with psychedelics to see how the drugs affected their work. Tim Scully, a mathematician who, with the chemist Nick Sand, produced 3.6m tabs of LSD in the 1960s, worked at a computer company after being released from his ten-year prison sentence for supplying drugs. "Working in tech, it was more of a plus than a minus that I worked with LSD," he says. No one would turn up to work stoned or high but "people in technology, a lot of them, understood that psychedelics are an extremely good way of teaching you how to think outside the box." San Francisco appears to be at the epicentre of the new trend, just as it was during the original craze five decades ago. Tim Ferriss, an angel investor and author, claimed in 2015 in an interview with CNN that "the billionaires I know, almost without exception, use hallucinogens on a regular basis." Few billionaires are as open about their usage as Ferriss suggests. Steve Jobs was an exception: he spoke frequently about how "taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life." In Walter Isaacson's 2011 biography, the Apple CEO is quoted as joking that Microsoft would be a more original company if Bill Gates, its founder, had experienced psychedelics. As Silicon Valley is a place full of people whose most fervent desire is to be Steve Jobs, individuals are gradually opening up about their usage -- or talking about trying LSD for the first time.
Psychedelics would explain a lot of the stupid shit coming out of Silicon Valley ... like the BS economics of most startups and the idiots who fund them.
Because no person who isn't on drugs would come up with stuff that stupid.
The more I hear about the crap going on in the Valley the more I think I'm ok being a "backward" midwesterner. Maybe Merl was onto something when he sang about the Okie from Muskogee.
I thought we covered the dosing morons in an earlier article:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/05/16/0330245/uploadvr-had-a-kink-room-pressured-female-employees-to-microdose-alleges-lawsuit
Long story short, if you need this crap to "perform", it's time to get out of the gene pool.
So how many hits did it take for some creative "genius" to come up with the Juicero?
Is the use of tools and technology not the key motivation behind human evolution?
Psychoactive drugs can be tools, and are most definitely technology.
Last I checked, it's still a Schedule-I narcotic which makes it unobtainable even with a prescription. What more does our anti-drug leaders need? It's a confession made free and clear in a news article. That should be more than sufficient grounds for a search warrant for house, car, and office.
I find it appalling that people are trying to promote these types of elicit drugs. If you need them, you are doing something wrong somewhere. If you are claiming they are "okay" or "needed" for "work", you are a disgusting person.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
People have been brainwashed by the drug war, and they think people that might use drugs are the ones who are weak minded. The ironing is delicious.
Good book. Sheds a light on the pre-Apple computing scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not just the drug culture, but also nudist culture. When I stayed at my best friend's family ranch in the Morgan Hill mountains for a weekend in 1984, I was told that it used to be a nudist colony. The property was littered with old playground equipment and wooden outhouses from that time.
I don't know about LSD, but Eric Raymond makes a plausible case for modafinil.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
But it did help make me much more paranoid, which I guess helps with tech if you work in infosec.
1) This isn't new. Creative people have been doing this since the discover of drugs. It's a common trope of the drugged out artist. Tech people have always had more in common with artists than businessmen, so it's no surprise that techs prefer the artistic drugs over the businessman's drug (cocaine).
2) It doesn't work the way people think it does. You are not more creative under the influence of drugs, you are actually less creative. But you stop asking yourself "Is this a good idea?" and just do it. It's basically brainstorming for one person. They also make you stop worrying about outside distractions (failure, your marriage, etc.)
Drugs do not add anything to your mental capacity. Anything you do under the influence is something you could have done anyway without it, as long as you did not let your own personal demons get in the way.
But some people are ruled by their personal demons, so they do better work on the drug than off. Sad really.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Those guys must get better stuff than I ever had access to- I'd say "one of the most important things in my life" was deciding to never, ever take LSD again, no matter how long it had been or how many people tried to convince me it'd be fun this time.
Maybe if you're super-rich you don't lay there 10 hours after dosing wishing you could fucking go to sleep, since you don't need to actually go to work or convince anyone you're not a piece of shit.
We had idiots in SV now we also have junkies.
Didn't mass adoption of caffeine help spur on the Age of Enlightenment.
Philip K. Dick wrote science-fiction, not manuals!
How many of your useless middle managers and HR departments drug test. Fuck off and die
You would need to be among people that take hits of LSD every day to think a $400 fruit squeezer was a great idea.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Or does this strike anyone else as looking particularly desperate?
Back around 1962 we used to order a big box of peyote directly from:
Smith Cacti Ranch
Box 36
Laredo, Texas
Anybody else remember them?
Wrote some of my best code back then.
Only $5.00 and the quality was great!
The only reason marijuana is legal but not cactus is . . . ??
Back in the early 70s when I was a grad student in biology, there was a lot of LSD around; also psilocybin, mescaline, and of course pot. Many of us used them as recreational drugs. It was fun, but it sure as hell didn't get your thesis written or your research done, even. For that you needed coffee. The few who took the "insights" of those trips seriously wound up going down the rabbit hole of "deep ecology" or some other bullshit.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
The article summary says it right there -- everyone in startup land is trying to be Steve Jobs. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos fame even wears black turtlenecks to try to complete the look.
It's just the personality version of cargo-culting. Plenty of business types do this but most don't have the degree of success they think they will:
- Tons of people try for the Jobs personality, or the Linus Torvalds personality, etc. Most end up only picking up the mannerisms and not the intelligence part. (Linus acts like a jerk, but he's usually correct and doesn't seem capable of being nice about it.)
- Go into any airport bookstore and look over any of the books aimed at MBA types. Since most of the customers are consultants, it's a pretty easy predictor of what "brilliant innovative groundbreaking paradigm shifts" will be tried at their customers -- and subsequently by tons of others.
- Similarly, any executive who starts using other executives' direct quotes is definitely wishing for similar success. My favorite of late, which I've heard come out of tons of "thought leaders" is the "2 pizza team" concept that Jeff Bezos talked about when he referred to keeping product groups small enough to feed with 2 pizzas.
If it requires taking LSD, they'll do that too. It's just a bunch of MBA weenies emulating their heroes.
You do realize that we already use copious amounts of drugs to "perform" in everyday society right? Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, the list goes on and on. I find it equal parts amusing and disturbing when people harp on about drug users while sitting next to a pile of Monster drink cans or a week after they went balistic beacause the coffee ran out in the break room.
Is this the creativity that brought us Juicera?
So why is this a "-1"
If the dude posted anonymously, maybe.
I don't agree with him, but at least he is honest.
GEeezzz, you guys must be smokin' some really bad shit.
Here's a howto from the perspective of someone who wouldn't normally be a drug user, and was a bit scared and ignorant of the whole process at first: https://medium.com/p/how-to-mi...
Everybody did, from mexico too. Trouble was being brave enough to go pick up the box from the post office.
At that dosing, you'd never know unless they told you.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"while sitting next to a pile of Monster drink cans or a week after they went balistic beacause the coffee ran out in the break room"
LMFAO!!
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
They can write a program about all their amazing insight on how and why they have 2 hands.
Back in my younger days, I played guitar in a band for a while, and hung out with a group that liked to experiment a bit with psychedelics.
My recollection of LSD was it felt like "shorting out your brain". Your sense of touch would become all mis-translated, so for example? The sensations you normally block out as irrelevant (like the feeling of the back of your leg pressing against the seat of the chair you're sitting in) all became "significant". You might have the "wires are crossed in my head" experience where you think you can see sounds you're hearing. Visual perceptions became distorted. You might see someone's face "morph" before your eyes into something out of a horror movie, or a room you're in might suddenly seem like it had really high ceilings, or the walls might feel like they're starting to close in on you. The often talked about "bad trip" was really nothing more than a typical LCD trip where your fears and paranoia became the topics of all of these illusions. (And since LSD takes many hours to wear off, it's easily possible to go from having a great experience to having a bad one, prompted by some random experience that reminds you of something unpleasant.)
I can understand how some people equate it with a "spiritual experience", but looking back on those trips -- I'd say that's just your mind playing tricks on you while tripping. It's easy to get grandiose ideas, like you "discovered something about God and creation" -- only to realize it was nonsense and incomplete thoughts later.
I really do think there may be something to the idea that musicians can create music that's more appealing to people doing drugs when they do the drugs themselves while composing it. (In particular, I remember listening to old Moody Blues albums while tripping and finding them way more enjoyable than I did any other time.) But that's not because the drugs unlocked some part of their brain or made them "more creative" than they were before. Its just that music is an expression of how a person feels, if it's done "from the heart" (and not just manufactured to try to sell it for a specific purpose). If you're really angry, you can write better heavy metal or angst-ridden rock. If you're tripping, you can write better psychedelic music.
seriously, when I was a little kid,I used to play with legos. never took LSD, never let a retar touch my weewee. and it always there: aircrafts, vehicles, building, you name it. when I was a fucking teenager I made my first game mod! never did pot before or drunk that. this guy just found a justification for his suicide taking drugs after creativity. it's more than a nutrition fact that creativity comes from brain activity, so you need your brain active to have ideas, instead of brain dead.
I did a LOT of cocaine after completing my graduation... but that only made my ideas to be typed more quick.
tricks are for billionaires...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I couldn't find LSD, so I tried taking LCD instead. There's one major downside to it: everything looks pixelated now.
#DeleteFacebook
But it's not a substitute for effort.
Researchers who've studied creativity define it as an unusual and appropriate solution to a problem. It's easy to get unusual with drugs, but appropriate is more of a challenge.
Creativity presupposes an unsually deep understanding of a problem domain. That's why your weird doodles aren't worth as much as Picasso's. He could do representational art if he wanted to. He drew this when he was twelve years old.
Now in my experience moments of creative inspiration come after you struggle with a problem for a long time, and you've exhausted all the conventional approaches to it. But because inspiration only comes after a struggle doesn't mean it always comes.
In particular you can be derailed by certain distractions. Fear of failure is one. A little bit of fear is healthy, but if you're ruminating about what comes after failure you're off-task. And another thing that takes your brain off-task is wanting to appear creative.
So I wouldn't be surprised if someone who'd put in the blood sweat and tears but wasn't letting his brain get on with the job might benefit from a little chemical help. But I'd be amazed if someone could waltz into an unfamiliar situation, pop a pill, and know what to do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, the list goes on and on.
Sugar is not a drug.
Alcohol is awful for society, as is nicotine.
Caffeine is mostly innocuous, and often mostly pointless. Once you become a regular caffeine user, you depend on it to get to your normal. People who drink x cups of coffee daily perform the same as people who don't drink coffee (or otherwise consume large amounts of caffeine).
"There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." — Jeremy S. Anderson
I did not really rape her, your honor. It was just the tip.
It is delicious, esp. when I iron naked!
LSD is a freakin' drug. It is not the miracle substance that will make you better against the government conspiracy blah blah blah.
Yes, LSD is fun. No, it won't kill you. Want to try, sure, go ahead. There are risks but if you take the necessary precautions, it is not that risky.
But as a productivity booster, no way. I suspect it is a bit like cocaine : you feel better but you aren't. It may give you a bit of inspiration if you are in a creative profession but I don't see how it can help with the rational thinking that is required to take advantage of it.
Now, this is about microdosing, not tripping. This, I am even more skeptical. The placebo effect is strong, and I know that LSD tends to have a high short term tolerance. I am waiting for the serious peer-reviewed studies on that one (feel free to share).
How much LSD did it take to get VCs to invest $120 million in Juicero?
What kind of retards are listening to a 27 year old pitch investments?
You obviously didn't do it in 1962.
100% ** TOTALLY LEGAL *** back then.
The USPO delivered the box direct to my house!
To be creative, I don't use drugs. Instead, I remember that "a way" to do something != "the only way". Maybe there's a better way.
Ah, so LSD anesthetized Steve Job's conscience enough he didn't feel bad about taking his friend's ideas and getting rich off them, while not paying to support his daughter growing up.
Clearly it's a useful tool to the american corporate executive.
Sugar is not a drug.
Then what is a drug? Google tells me a drug, n., is a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. Does sugar not meet that definition? Or is Google's definition incorrect? Or am I insufficiently adept at doublespeak?
I took some LSD to see and hear different things. It worked and I got some great ideas and new musical flavors. Then I started seeing and hearing the same different things so I moved on. Pot is the same. At a certain point in a project - that point depends on the type of project of course - it can ease up a log jam, provide a spark of inspiration, add a new esthetic view point. Writing applications and games I got some really good ideas on pot. For the long road of executing those ideas a little bit of caffeine, days with no distractions and enough sleep are my drugs of choice.
Even touring playing in a reggae rhythm section all day pot use got old relatively quickly. ROOTS
There indeed are many paths to problem behavior. That should not need stating.
And, that was merely an example of possible cognitive side-effects. The devil's in the details. Some ex-users do describe unpleasant side-effects, as a sister reply mentions. I don't claim them universal, for I've stated multiple times it can vary per individual. But one doesn't know ahead of time if they themselves are immune. Therefore, it is a gamble.
Further, just because one doesn't consciously notice anything significant doesn't necessarily mean their behavior has not been altered.
Some are becoming rather defensive here it appears to me. Can we at least agree there is some risk, existing studies are insufficient to fully know, and that it may affect individuals differently? If not, let's take up each sub-point by itself.
Table-ized A.I.
I like my coffee, but the answer to your question is that it's hard to say because around the same time, clean drinking water/better sanitation practices also became available en masse in the major cities, reducing the need for people to drink beer instead of water. Factories and scientific research tend to run better when everyone isn't a little buzzed.
About weed, not LSD, but the point remains. It makes you think funny, and believe you're being profound. But you're just getting high.
Same thing with dreams. Make perfect sense while you're having them. Make absolutely no sense once you're awake and thinking clearly. Occasionally a good idea will pop out of the noise. Just like occasionally you'll win the lottery or have an apropos captcha in the comments section.
It may explain the creation and toleration of the flat look. After you take it, it's no longer flat (to you).
Table-ized A.I.
Fuck yeah, the 50s are back! Although, it would be nice to see an example of a drug inspired movie that went through the production machinery without the innovation systematically removed from it.
So you have so many extra developers available, you would be willing to fire your lead guy?
I don't drink soda, don't drink caffeine boosted (energy drinks), don't drink alcohol, don't eat or drink much sugar. When I have sugar, it's generally natural in fruits. Amazingly I know and work with plenty of people who are similar.
Fairy tales are amusing, and your amusement comes from telling one to yourself.
It is quite a leap to go from caffeine to LSD, or claim that LSD is fine because you drink a glass of wine on occasion. You may want to think over that bit of logic.
Confirmation bias. You should broaden your perspective.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The tip is all you have.
I'll take mine with extra mushrooms, please!
Sugar is not a drug.
Wow that was silly.
For people who are addicted to sugar, sugar obviously is a drug.
People who drink x cups of coffee daily perform the same as people who don't drink coffee (or otherwise consume large amounts of caffeine).
Yes and no.
The people who are depended on caffeine drop in performance significantly if they don't get it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It's just tricky to stay on the Ballmer peak.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why not do that? Gives you extra strength too
Only if you iron a nice juicy pork chop.
No I don't think so. The modern age of coffee-fueled offices is entirely a product of Maxwell House's 1950s advertising with the slogan, "Take a coffee break." I kid you not. The modern "coffee break" is the result of an ad campaign. It was successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
Before that time, coffee was only consumed in the home, probably at breakfast and after supper. And if you go back even farther, coffee wasn't really a part of American households until after World War I when returning veterans bought back a taste for it, having had it in their rations.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undert...
Tommy John surgery used to be for injuries to pitchers. It has been glorified and normalized so that many very young kids are getting the surgery, often causing long term permanent injury and disability. You don't see a problem with popular web pages posting articles with claims "Tommy Johns surgery makes you a better pitcher, and everyone is doing it"? You really don't believe that this impacts young athletes? Parents even thinking they need to push their young adult/teen just a bit further and promote the surgery?
The damages from drugs are often similar to bad surgery, with permanent life long impact. Not every time, and not every case, but a measurable enough percentage where we have made the drug illegal.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mostly revolving around how everyone I had ever considered a "friend", including family members, have actually really only ever looked down upon me and seen me a as a complete retard. It opened my eyes alright... and not in a pleasant way.
"Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and BSD. I don't think that this is a coincidence."
-Anonymous
Not creativity from drugs, but drug users rationalizing their use. "Oh, I'm special, it makes me better, I'm not like all the other abusers..."
apk?
Drugs to have visions, just like JPL and Huxley. How long until the occult sex and virgin murder rituals?
Oh wait, he's from Silicon Valley. That ship has probably sailed.
I used it to see different things. Then I started seeing the same different things and moved on. All the squares in standard slashdot rant fest on their high horses reminds me of the power pop chick who used to rail against pot. I asked her to name one artist that she "loved" that didn't create much of their better work on pot. She couldn't.
Pot over time is no more or less creative than booze. People use it to relax and to control their moods. I'd much rather be on a freeway next to a guy stoned then a guy drunk however. Acid can be very dangerous, person by person. I knew a few college professors, one in mathematics, who tripped every weekend for a few years and were fine, disregarding questionable musical obsessions. I also knew a drummer who was always just a one beer guy, never smoked weed. Took some acid with some chicks in a hot tub, ended up running nude down the freeway and his brain never came back.
Peyote is spectacular. The crash comes first. You feel awful and then it's intensely colorful.
The SRI's that half of the US are on are nasty, addictive, in many cases cause permanent low end personality damage and are not only legal but pushed relentlessly by doctors bribed by big pharma.
Psychedelics aren't for everyone. Humans have been experimenting with altered states since some hairy post monkey chewed on a particular plant. Then later by accidentally fermenting probably grapes(?). Tobacco arriving in Spain turned into a huge drug problem. Jobs and LSD is a good story for the techies. He didn't use it for day in day out work, he used it to look around unhinged. Then he came back and got to work, probably on coffee definitely wearing a turtleneck.
I wouldn't mod this one myself, but I consider a strongly opinionated comment like this without an explanation to be trolling. It adds nothing to discussion.
Fucking ME... Still gets the blood boiling!
I've already heard that Gates dropped acid and a little googling pulled up some confirmation. I've seen it in other sources too. So. Old school Microsoft *is* a product of the "hippie" generation, just like Apple stuff. That generation gave us the happy-go lucky Woz, and the hard-driving egomaniacal Jobs, and the square Gates.
The jury is out on whether or not it increases your odds of certain cancers; but I've read some bios of other "pscyhonauts", and cancer seems to come up a lot. Of course it's just anecdotal, and they did a lot of other drugs; so it's hard to say.
So. If the Silly Valley wants to guinea pig themselves, I guess they are quasi-free to do that since the government is so dysfunctional these days it can barely even keep nazis and commies from re-enacting the Civil War with less spiffy uniforms. Then again, maybe somebody dosed me without me realizing it. That would explain a lot of things.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In the 1950s, LSD was a therapeutic drug used to increase brain plasticity (behaviour re-programming). Then someone discovered LSD overdoses were fun. Then someone discovered that repeated overdoses guaranteed horrific flashbacks. Thus, a very effective medicine was banned.
If you haven't tried it than fuck off. You don't have a CLUE what you're talking about.
Any seriously intelligent person that tries LSD will never be the same again.
Brainwashed prudes...go back to church and do what you're told. Nothing for you to see here.
Not really. The risks of drugs vary a bit depending on which drug and the person. But even in the best case you're ingesting something with minimal testing and understanding of the long-term effects.
As for weak mindedness, it's true. Drugs don't help, they cause abnormal activity that results in worse results not better. The most creative people are schizophrenic, they're also amongst the least capable of harnessing the creativity.
More facts courtesy of citation needed.
There is no drug test for LSD or mushrooms... sucks to be a pothead, yea?
If its simple enough to be happy with when blitzed on weed, it's fsckin awesome when sober.
Lotta jazz players thought that Coltrane's secret was heroin. It wasn't.
People who drink x cups of coffee daily perform the same as people who don't drink coffee (or otherwise consume large amounts of caffeine).
Not really. Assume person A drinks a couple of cups of coffee while completing task X. Assume person B completes task X without coffee. Task X is generally a pointless waste of time. But at least person A was able to drink a few cups of good coffee.
Folklore is a giant wax museum of intrepid historical figures flipping the bird to the domed dinosaur diorama while cracking open a champagne magnum against the nearest tree (do forgive my small anachronism) or throwing a giant streaming parade minutes before the world changed of its own accord by a rapid cascade of barely perceptible degrees (perspective: sweltering NBA reptile with small, sticky fingers) in the inexorable march of exploration, exploitation, and delinquency (subtypes: fungus, resin, coca, cocoa, coffee, erbium, tantalum, palladium, niobium).
It was clear from context the gp meant "legally unobtainable". And as such the gp is right, baring scientific research (and even then good luck with the paperwork and security requirement) you cannot obtain LSD legally. Why you were modded insightful when the context is clear is beyond me.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
LSD kills brain cells, almost as bad as ICE. You can see crackheads with 25% of their brain converted to jello.
Both are seriously bad. If one beer or one cigarette causes 1x brain cell deaths, Marijuana is 3x, LSD is 2 Million X times as bad.
Opiates cause 1x brain cell deaths - but highly addictive leading to other problems.
That said micro doses are untested.I suggest Marijuana in non micro-doses would be just as effective - as proven by most advertising agencies.
T shirt competitions and arranged meetings with diverse programmers and a BA tend to get creative juices flowing - an argument and a solution to prove you knew better than that jerk - works a treat. Supplying caffeine free coffee for a day or two, then supplying cold brew enhanced batches also shakes teams up.
You have to be high to use drugs.
The risks of drugs vary a bit depending on which drug and the person. But even in the best case you're ingesting something with minimal testing and understanding of the long-term effects.
We should set up a controlled area for trials and observe the long-term effects on them. Let's call it 'Silicon Valley'.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If you have a real IT job then you don't get drug tested, and certainly not at random. Insurance might compel one for certain types of accidents (that aren't common to keyboard jockeys) but that's about it. Also, to a first approximation they only test for cannabis use: most other drugs are consumed in pretty small quantities and don't leave many lingering metabolites, and this is most true for LSD, which is one of the most potent psychoactive substances known.
Other people's drug habits are terrible; only the ones I use are okay.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
It is quite a leap to go from caffeine to LSD, or claim that LSD is fine because you drink a glass of wine on occasion. You may want to think over that bit of logic.
You have no basis for comparison. Contrary to how they are often depicted, drugs are typically pretty boring. Specifically, any depictions of "tripping" that you have seen are essentially not true. LSD is not necessarily much more inebriating than alcohol, and you're pretty unlikely to get any open-eye visual hallucinations. There are other drugs that are better for that, but LSD is really just a cheap feeling of enlightenment.
That's not what confirmation bias is, as well. I understand that much of your worldview is predicated on your inability to distinguish logical fallacies from empirical fallacies, but you're really being aggressively stupid today.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Ah brilliant. I suppose we're talking about the minimal decades of testing of people trying to kill themselves with psychedelics and failing miserably, as compared to alcohol, which very easily creates miserable people on the way to liver damage, or things like Tylenol and SSRIs which will kill you or put you into opioid-like withdrawal.
I do not like to consume alcohol. Marijuana (ingested) and LSD are on the menu, however. I'm sure it's ridiculous to you that I would use some critical thinking skills to consider the danger of something that has significant corporate interest in it not being considered harmful (health-wise, and especially behaviorally) and decide to use generally illicit (I live in colorado) substances instead.
I guarantee you people who don't know how to take it easy on alcohol are far more plentiful and FAR more destructive.
Yes, yes, we know. You're DIFFERENT. you're not an addict, you're special. You handle it better. It's technology, it's not some base need, blah blah blah.
If I had a dollar for every drug addict who parroted this, I'd be rich.
It's just rationalization.
His comment wasn't moderated. He posts at -1 because he has shit karma here from years of using slashdot as a recruiting tool for his favorite religious movement. This comment is basically roman's version of karma-whoring, hoping to say something reasonable enough to get a comment moderated up so that he can post at 0 again.
just what the world needs, more druggies/wannabehippies. millenial idiots continue to be the bane of the species in perpetuating ignoring history and repeating it over and over again. way to go.
I went to art school, where the LSD flowed freely. I never used it myself, because I'm too creative for my own good, but...
I'd watch my mates wandering around the city on acid, and prattling on about how "creative" it made them. But to a man/woman, their actual art/designs were only ever mediocre at best. While they lost valuable time tripping that they could have spent practicing their craft.
And if you go back even farther, coffee wasn't really a part of American households until after World War I when returning veterans bought back a taste for it, having had it in their rations.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undert...
Sounds like coffee took off in the US at the same time that it industrialized (like tea in Britain). Caffeine is quite useful when your life revolves around a clock. Not so much when you're a farmer who rises and rests with the sun.
Remember that in WWII, something like 70% of the population still lived on farms. Now it's less than 10%. Take a trip through Kansas and you'll see plenty of 4/5ths abandoned towns that were full in the 40's and 50's.
The best insight I ever heard gained from using LSD came from a friend:
Me: What is the best insight you gained while on LSD?
Him: (Thought for a minute...) "I guess it's 'what am I doing fucking up my life with LSD?'"
but evil men will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
I've been saying for months that the left coast progressive are trying to bring 1968 back, it seems they are well on their way. Apparently nobody remembers how badly that turned out.... Antifa looks a lot like SDS to me.
Murphy was an optimist
The religious and political tyrants control you by manipulating your emotional states. LSD makes you aware of what your emotions are and able to duck this manipulation.
That's a lame argument, whether or not people know how to handle alcohol and whether or not they're a bigger problem is completely irrelevant to the question about whether or not LSD is safe.And whether or not LSD ought to be legal.
The only reason that alcohol is legal in the US is because there are enough people that refused to follow the law during prohibition that there were massive problems. If we were banning purely based on safety, people wouldn't be allowed to drink the stuff.
Not really, the burden of proof here is on the people claiming that LSD leads to useful creativity and that it's safe for consumption.
Putting substances in the head to expand one's mind or for some sort of high ought to be viewed with suspicion as those feelings are the result of the brain functioning in abnormal ways. Sometimes, it's not a particular problem as the brain goes back the way it was soon after the substance is out of the body and sometimes it causes damage that can't be repaired. Only with research can we establish what the effects are.
Sugar isn't a drug. Most of those folks that are "addicted" to sugar are either suffering from sleep deprivation or aren't metabolizing it properly. I know that I'm more or less a sugar addict when I haven't been sleeping because of what sleep deprivation does to my brain, but to call that addiction is rather offensive. I'm a recovered alcoholic and being "addicted" to sugar isn't even remotely the same thing as being addicted.
In either case, addressing the underlying problem causes the "addiction" to go away pretty much immediately.
As for caffeine, that's a load of crap. Caffeine removes sleepiness, it doesn't increase wakefulness. Most people who drink large amounts of coffee get a drop in performance due to withdrawal. If they'd keep their use to a minimum, it wouldn't be an issue. Or, if they cycled it on and off, they wouldn't have an issue.
Much of the abuse of caffeine comes from the fact that people don't understand how it works and what it does. Caffeine removes drowsiness, it doesn't increase wakefullness. It can be helpful in the morning to remove the last bit of drowsiness, but if you haven't already mostly woken up, it's not going to do you much good. Drinking it immediately upon waking is a complete waste as coffee doesn't wake people up, it removes drowsiness.
You have no basis for comparison.
You know of all my personal experiences and knowledge how exactly? Simple answer: You don't. Your claim of intellectual high ground is based on an appeal to a non-existent authority.
Contrary to how they are often depicted, drugs are typically pretty boring.
Your assumption seems to be that the only reason people do drugs is for entertainment. Which is a complete bullshit argument with little basis in reality. People use drugs for reasons like depression from any number of causes, wanting to fit in to any number of circumstances, and from peer pressure (resulting from statements like TFA claims where "everyone is doing it but nobody admits it", and "you are a better person when using LSD"
LSD is not necessarily much more inebriating than alcohol, and you're pretty unlikely to get any open-eye visual hallucinations. There are other drugs that are better for that, but LSD is really just a cheap feeling of enlightenment.
Comparing LSD to alcohol ignores the effects of both drugs on a human. LSD has been known to cause suicides, persistent psychological problems like paranoia and neurotic behavior, and since the body has a hard time processing LSD out of the system echos are a big problem. But hey, you are the person who claimed the intellectual high ground, why don't you bring any of those up?
That's not what confirmation bias is, as well. I understand that much of your worldview is predicated on your inability to distinguish logical fallacies from empirical fallacies, but you're really being aggressively stupid today.
The person who refuses to even acknowledge well documented science regarding the impact of drugs in general, in addition to the drug in question, and citing personal anecdotes which agree with their opinion is _EXACTLY_ what confirmation bias is. My world view is based on facts, which you are simply ignoring. Why not perform a basic web search for "negative effects of LSD" as a start.
More importantly, tell me how glorifying and normalizing the drugs is _not_ harmful for society? We know that it is, and cigarettes and alcohol are two very easy examples. That was my position and point from the start, which you simply ignore repeatedly. You doing drugs is not the same thing as you publishing an article noting 0 negative effects from LSD, claiming "everyone does it", and claiming "you need it to be successful". That type of article targets the weakest in society and pushes them toward usage. It's not neutral in any way shape or form.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You have no basis for comparison, because you said so yourself.
Your assumption seems to be that the only reason people do drugs is for entertainment.
Straw man.
LSD has been known to cause suicides,
There is neither a causal link nor a strong correlation.
persistent psychological problems like paranoia and neurotic behavior
Again, the link is not causal, and the consistent finding across all categories of drug abuse is that the higher incidence of mental conditions in users reflects differences in the underlying population.
and since the body has a hard time processing LSD out of the system echos are a big problem
There is very little evidence that acid flashbacks are more than a myth. LSD is metabolized extremely rapidly, with plasma concentrations peaking at about five hours after intake. Metabolites are out of the system in a matter of days, at most. There may or may not be some neurological condition which results in something people would recognize as an "acid flashback", but even that much is disputed, and there is no reason to believe in a casual relationship.
Complaining about normalizing drug use in the US is asinine. The US has been arguing over what drugs are acceptable since the colonial days; we're the most drugged society in history. The onus is on opponents to show harm. There are many drugs which represent public health hazards; LSD is not on that list. You want someone else to take that idea seriously, come up with a study and not just more D.A.R.E. propoaganda. Then provide further evidence that this would apply to microdosing, of which the entire point is that it should barely have a perceptual effect. Otherwise you're pretty much just going to have to live with the idea that you live in a culture whose values are broadly opposite to yours, and that this will always be the case.
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with anybody taking tiny doses of one of the safest and most potent psychoactive agents known. What you are doing is called lying.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Remember that in WWII, something like 70% of the population still lived on farms. Now it's less than 10%. Take a trip through Kansas and you'll see plenty of 4/5ths abandoned towns that were full in the 40's and 50's.
According to the US census, 43.5% of the population was rural in 1940, down to 36.0% by 1950. Considering those weren't all living on farms, nowhere near 70% of the population lived on a farm in WWII.
Source: https://www.census.gov/populat...
Stop! Dremel time!
I believe the parent was referring to the coffee shop and wine bar culture from the 18th and 19th century Central Europe. People got talking about political and philosophical issues, reading their daily or weekly paper and got influenced by the new ideas like Enlightenment, various art movements, democracy, communism, national socialism and so on. Facebook with pastry, in other words.