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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.
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.
If you need them, you are doing something wrong somewhere.
Nobody needs LSD. But, some people believe that their quality of life improves with occasional use. Use of LSD can absolutely be a spiritual experience. Who are you to decide that what people are doing is right/wrong?
If you are claiming they are "okay" or "needed" for "work", you are a disgusting person.
Tell us what you really think! We're all dying for your approval.
Disclaimer: I haven't dropped acid in over 15 years.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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
Didn't mass adoption of caffeine help spur on the Age of Enlightenment.
The argument is that you can perform to exception, not to standard.
Salvinorin A if we go with this shit, please. Toxicity is unknown because extreme overdoses have so far shown 0 toxicity; injuries from the drug have never happened (unlike MDMA, which will frigging destroy your 5HT system); and, honestly, it runs for about 5-15 minutes and then burns out of your system, versus 15-20 hours on LSD.
Let's be reasonable: Kappa-Opioid Receptor Agonists are well-known as anti-addictives (YES!) and "insight drugs" or whatever; but you don't need a 16-hour high every frigging day. Go on your little spirit walk and then go to bed.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Philip K. Dick wrote science-fiction, not manuals!
Agreed. Fuck the downside, speedy, 'trips over' part. No fun at all, boring as fuck.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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?
As opposed to promoting other licit drugs?
I don't get why some people have a moral bee in their bonnet about this kind of thing.
If its bogus, then these so-called creative types do worse, fail at their jobs and people not invested in the idea of taking LSD do better and replace them.
If its not bogus, then maybe they do better at their jobs and the only real outrage is we all don't have access to micro doses of LSD.
In either case, the argument for moral outrage doesn't seem to accomplish much. If LSD is hokum, then their failure is your moral justice. If they're right, though, your moral outrage isn't justified at all -- you're basically arguing people shouldn't take LSD because it's beneficial.
My guess is like most things, the truth is in the middle. Some people get some minor benefit and some people get some minor detraction from the experience, but power and authority being what they are, these same people get to decide what's success and what's failure, and they just define it as success.
If you want to be outraged about something, be outraged at that -- that people who do the judging are also the ones that judge themselves and set the standard, too.
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 . . . ??
You joke but self trepanation is a thing. I met the woman who did it. She made a damn movie. Here's an article about her. Yes, the photo is a still from the movie.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/art...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Drug tests are low grade IQ tests. You should be able to pass one while actively stoned or you're too stupid to work in tech.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
Disclaimer: I haven't dropped acid in over 15 years.
And you are proud of advertising that?
Not advertising. Disclaiming. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of trying psychedelics in college. Why should I be?
Drugs are "Spiritual"?
I didn't say "drugs" in general. I said LSD can be. The experience differs based on many circumstances and the determination on whether the experience was "spiritual" is entirely up to the user.
Sorry, but you are doing the same thing as TFA. Glorifying drugs!
Not all drugs are worthless. Not every drug experience is negative. Is that glorifying? I think it's just truth.
Will you next claim how I'm just a prude for being against drunk driving?
Nobody said anything like that. Obvious strawman is obvious.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I'm sorry, but you just come off as kinda silly, uptight and naive. The reason your moral high ground feels so hard to cling to is because you don't actually have any.
Breakfast served all day!
I find it appalling that people are trying to promote these types of elicit drugs.
I find it pathetic that someone who can't spell illicit wants to tell us what kind of drugs we should be on, especially when they seem to skip their meds every day.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
Agreed. Fuck the downside, speedy, 'trips over' part. No fun at all, boring as fuck.
Get better drugs. Of course, that's a PITA specifically because of prohibition, but anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You met "the" woman who did it? She's not the only person to have done that. Plenty of other idiots have done it.
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.
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).
I'm fairly confident I sampled a cross section of 'the good stuff'. LSD just has a long, boring, sleepless downside.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Oh don't worry, I'm not for the legal prescripts in many cases either. Doctors hand out so many types of synthetic codeine that a whole new drug market popped up for treating side effects of synthetic codeine.
Don't get me wrong, I'm also very sympathetic to people with pain. I have been on the operating table numerous times, and have chronic pain from injuries. Teaching people to get off pain medication is lost to most people in medicine, because they can be sued for not handing out more and more drugs.
I'm fine with people abusing themselves, and am purely libertarian in that regard. Drink as much as you want, Smoke dope, shoot heroin, drop acid/LSD, eat peyote, live on a chain diet of Oxycontin and Vicodin, what ever you want do do with you is fine. Promoting those things to others is what I take issue with.
A published article claiming a "need" for LSD to be successful and glorification and claim of normalcy with it's use without any argument is the problem.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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).
Amazing that you don't even bother to argue against my original point, but toss around insults. Can we have this company email your kids and/or grandkids articles talking about how "all the successful people are using LSD" and how the experience is purely "Spiritual"? You don't think that would have an impact on them and their growth if they were teens/young adults? You can't be that naive.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
How much LSD did it take to get VCs to invest $120 million in Juicero?
So you skip the argument about the "PROMOTION OF DRUGS" and nitpick a spelling error. Rational discussion at it's finest.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
Why not use the ACTUAL definition of the word instead of a synonym which seems to be an attempt to discount my position? Because the actual definition backs my position?
Spiritual
1 : of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal spiritual needs
2 a : of or relating to sacred matters spiritual songs
b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal spiritual authority lords spiritual
3: concerned with religious values
4: related or joined in spirit our spiritual home his spiritual heir
5a : of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
b : of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
That is why you plan your shit out. Trip Friday night, and have two days to recover. It's like if you plan, you can be both irresponsible, and responsible at the same time.
So you have so many extra developers available, you would be willing to fire your lead guy?
I've seen so many of these microdosing of LSD articles that I can't keep the fresh bullshit from the stale bullshit, but I'm mostly convinced that nobody has said its *necessary*, just that they felt it was "useful" for lack of a better word.
About the closest I've seen to someone advocating for it as a beneficial *therapy* was a severe depression sufferer who didn't get relief from the usual anti-depression drugs.
In the case of computer-type office work, I think most of this whole microdosing thing (and I'd throw in ADHD with it, too, for the most part) is that we've organized and rationalized work to about the general functional limits of human productivity. We're just not well made for sitting in cubicles doing highly focused tasks 50 hours a week, which is probably more like 100 hours a week if you add in off-work screen time. People are either not doing the work well, or they're getting it done but losing themselves to stress, depression and anxiety.
At least with microdoses of LSD they're not using something that's likely to be too likely to turn into a long term problem like amphetamines or opioids, at least for the usual definitions of microdoses I've seen used (just below perceptible side effects).
You need to educate yourself instead of misrepresenting your prejudices and confabulations as fact.
Yep. They're a bad joke. Not intended to catch anyone. Theater.
If drug tests worked, no 'crete would get poured, no paint would be slopped etc etc.
They have tests almost impossible to cheat on (yet). They're expensive and business has to stay staffed. But they want the better workers comp rates, so joke testing it is.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Claiming that certain drugs are okay because they "may" be Spiritual would be like saying loads of other extremely dangerous experiences are okay because they "may" be "Spiritual".
Most drugs are "ok".
Society/laws that outlaw them makes them not ok, unreasonable expensive, only available via criminal sources, polluted by substances to thin them out (and you can not go to the police and accuse your pusher "oh, he sold me 100% pure stuff, but it was not only just 45% but also contaminated with baby butt powder"), requiring you to become a half criminal as well, to acquire them, either because of black market or money issues or addiction, wich you probably would not have if you simply could get a nice shot every weekend from your pharmacy.
Sorry, but if you have no clue about drugs then stay out of the discussion.
Disclaimer: except alcohol and canabis I did not use drugs. But I don't know a single person that did not try LSD, mushrooms, Heroine or Cocaine. Well, now while I type this, I think I know one person who did not, perhaps two.
And guess what: none of them is an addictive drug abuser.
The idea about drugs in the US or mainstream european politics are just absolutely absurd.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Citation needed.
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'
Thank you for the definition. It sounds like an LSD trip has the potential to be "spiritual" on all 5 counts. 5a's contestable.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Hence, my claim that you are glorifying drugs is correct
You seem to think that's a bad thing. Why?
Perhaps you can read up on the definition and meaning of "Spiritual" while brushing up on basic logic.
Fun fact: I've never seen anyone who goes on and on about "logical fallacies" who has any background in logic. (Though many who are under the mistaken impression that they do! Like programmers who fancy themselves mathematicians, it's just self-delusion.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
Only if you iron a nice juicy pork chop.
The claims in TFA are roughly that "you need it to be better", and "everyone is doing it but nobody is admitting it". Those two statements can be said to be both glorifying and normalizing the drug, which impacts the most susceptible.
Again, my argument isn't that you can't experiment or do the drugs yourself. My argument is that it should not be glorified.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
"Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and BSD. I don't think that this is a coincidence."
-Anonymous
So you skip the argument about the "PROMOTION OF DRUGS" and nitpick a spelling error. Rational discussion at it's finest.
*its
Also, that was a stupid argument the last thousand times some other idiot made it. Drugs are everywhere, statistically everyone believes in using drugs to make life better. You only want to argue about which ones we should be using. You think you have some kind of moral high ground, but you prove that you have none literally by trying to claim that particular piece.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You are clearly identified as a stupid motherfucker. Go ahead and rip off that face mask and reveal to us that you are Nancy Reagan's animated corpse.
Go back tonyour neo-Stalinst reality, now, idiot.
"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
Because it is fake news. ;^)
LSD was created by Sandoz in Switzerland (now Novartis) and popularized by Prof. Leary of Harvard (not Berkeley), and Unix of course came out of Bell Labs, New Jersey, only the BSD branch was worked on in Berkeley.
I think Mr. Anderson was indulging a bit too much when he made that statement.
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..."
We all skip the bullshit arguements we suffered through on poorly duplicated leaflets and film strips in the seventh grade followed by lectures from the wrestling coach/health teacher. We heard it already.
That you sound like you instead survived through a neo-Stalinist hellhole where 'drug pushers' were sent to a gulag is no excuse for you to recycle garbage that is not insightful to anyboy reading it.
Protect your Precious Bodily Fluids, dude.
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.
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"?
Spiritual: Synonym Gullible.
That's pretty grim. I think of spiritual experiences as those that alter the way we live our lives. Even the most hardcore atheist is capable of spiritual experiences.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
More facts courtesy of citation needed.
There is no drug test for LSD or mushrooms... sucks to be a pothead, yea?
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.
Wait...he doesn't agree with drug use, and that makes him a neo-stalinist? Are you high?
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.
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
On the upside: The remainder of your life will feel like it's taking forever and when death finally comes, it will be sweet relief.
You can make it 'even better' by moving to Decatur Illinois and marrying a frigid methodist..
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
There are no drugs that are addictive.
There is addictive behaviour. That is a kind of mental illness.
In other words, the circumstances during which you take drugs, for what ever reason, determine your drug usage.
Change the circumstances and everything falls back to normal.
Yes, in case of alcohol etc, there is a physical addiction, but that is overcome in a few days.
So bottom line: most drugs are ok. If consumed and not abused.
Good luck with your medication, you will understand what I say when you get 'addicted' to your daily dose of vitamins, or Aspirin.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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!