Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#71

Post by V-2 » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #69

I've taken my fair share of drugs of all sorts, and maybe I'm just a grumpy bastard, but I've never felt like the author describes. I've never seen God or the afterlife. I've always been fully aware than even deep into a trip or a roll or in the depths of a k hole, it's just the drugs that are making me weird. I'm all for taking recreational drugs to have fun and I'm all for "recreational drugs" used in a clinical se…

This reminds me of the famous Leary vs. Lettvin debate (1967): https://youtu.be/Gq3Fp-xp0l0

For the brochure version: http://www.swt.org/oshare/Lettvin-Leary/Lettvin-Leary-LSD-De...

Leary's sitting in the lotus position was always a red flag to me ;) I don't advocate a prohibition at all, but I think there's something wrong with attempting to conceive some sort of an ideology to back up the drug use.

Lettvin's point - "but the problem is whether the navel really replaces TV" - still stands ;)

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#72

Post by st26 » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

HighlandSpring wrote: post #11

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree - in fact I am starting to look at fats and sugar as drugs at least as harmful long term as some "real" drugs. When you look at coca cola adverts and big supermarkets as pushers, things start to become much clearer and the scale of the struggle on obesity really is startling. So yes, I am in favour of democratic nanny states.

Sugar, absolutely. Which fats do you have in mind?

Trans fats perhaps, which we still allow in foods, and don't even need to be included on the nutritional label %'s if the amount is low.

They're still everywhere, despite the fact we're pretty sure they are unhealthy at any dose.

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#73

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

dqv wrote: post #65

jdietrich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a rather worrying trend of psychedelics being "sold" as a safe panacea. If you believe the cheerleaders, psychedelics are powerful enough to rapidly cure mental illness and facilitate profoundly positive personality changes, but have only trivial side-effects. That doesn't seem particularly plausible to me - there aren't many medicines that are both very potent and very safe. The stereotype of the burned-out…

> HPPD is almost certainly a real disorder. I just looked that up and have assumed it was normal for most of my life. Sometime around when I was 3-5 years old, I was laying in bed, looking up up at the wall and noticed this visual noise. I wondered about it and resolved that "that's just how it is." I would also close my eyes and let that fuzz "set in" and see beautiful fire works and replay music in my head. Maybe j…

[deleted]

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#74

Post by Matticus_Rex » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #68

throwaway98371 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a really conservative, deeply religious (Protestant Christian) family. My parents loved me and did their best to raise me according to their beliefs, but their beliefs were both absurdly strict and also ridiculously unsupportable by the scientific evidence that, as a book- and science-obsessed teenager, I was absorbing at a rapid pace. Given that I was quickly disbelieving everything I had been raised to…

I didn’t excuse my parents behavior just because it came from “love”. They didn’t know any better, but they also refused my attempts to educate them multiple times. To me, that says their ego and need to assume things about their “afterlife” was more important than pursuing valid data and analysis, not a good trait in my opinion.

So who had a better experience? You or the guy who learned about acceptance and transcendence?

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#75

Post by cabaalis » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

throwaway98371 wrote: post #63

jdietrich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a rather worrying trend of psychedelics being "sold" as a safe panacea. If you believe the cheerleaders, psychedelics are powerful enough to rapidly cure mental illness and facilitate profoundly positive personality changes, but have only trivial side-effects. That doesn't seem particularly plausible to me - there aren't many medicines that are both very potent and very safe. The stereotype of the burned-out…

I grew up in a really conservative, deeply religious (Protestant Christian) family. My parents loved me and did their best to raise me according to their beliefs, but their beliefs were both absurdly strict and also ridiculously unsupportable by the scientific evidence that, as a book- and science-obsessed teenager, I was absorbing at a rapid pace. Given that I was quickly disbelieving everything I had been raised to…

There is a sort of "luddite" form of Christianity that even I think is problematic. My family is mostly teachers and preachers. I'm a Christian and am raising my son as one also.

For instance, my uncle who is a preacher was completely barred from using his iPad to store and read his sermons, because using such a thing as a tool to preach was somehow evil. ????

A big part of the existing doctrine is to try to help you identify things which are sinful, which basically means will separate you from God. And there's a place for that. But there is also a huge modern movement which focuses on Jesus' interaction with people, the actual words he spoke and the things that he did which are very loving, forgiving, and accepting of even the worst of sinners.

Which is more effective? (A) "Don't take those drugs, you'll go to hell!" or (B) "Hey man, I love you, and God loves you. I think these are having a very bad effect on your life. I'd like to help you with that, and will be here for you when you want to talk."

In my opinion, (A) is more of what the old-style doctrine preaches, while (B) is closer to Jesus' actual actions in the bible.

Anyways, I'm done. I wanted to also make the point that I fully believe you can pursue science and physics and all of that while still being utterly amazed at the breadth and beauty of God's work. But this post is getting too long, and people have in the past accused me of being a fence sitter for holding that opinion. I am not.

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#76

Post by malmsteen » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

malmsteen wrote: post #38

tranchms wrote: post #13

“LSD comes from bacteria.” This is wrong. LSD is synthesized from ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. An oversight like this throws the authors entire credibility into question. Know your subject matter.

whatever though? we have thousand of bacterias in the body ad at the end of the process LSD is just a molecule.

why the downvotes ? there's more bacteria in milk than there will ever be in any drug im just saying op's point make no sense.

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#77

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

V-2 wrote: post #71

toomanybeersies wrote: post #69

I've taken my fair share of drugs of all sorts, and maybe I'm just a grumpy bastard, but I've never felt like the author describes. I've never seen God or the afterlife. I've always been fully aware than even deep into a trip or a roll or in the depths of a k hole, it's just the drugs that are making me weird. I'm all for taking recreational drugs to have fun and I'm all for "recreational drugs" used in a clinical se…

This reminds me of the famous Leary vs. Lettvin debate (1967): https://youtu.be/Gq3Fp-xp0l0 For the brochure version: http://www.swt.org/oshare/Lettvin-Leary/Lettvin-Leary-LSD-De... Leary's sitting in the lotus position was always a red flag to me ;) I don't advocate a prohibition at all, but I think there's something wrong with attempting to conceive some sort of an ideology to back up the drug use. Lettvin's point…

Speaking of Leary, this quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [1] basically sums up my opinion and sentiment above:

> All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create...

> ...a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody-or at least some force-is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel...

> ... This is the same cruel and paradoxically benevolent bullshit has kept the Catholic Church going for so many centuries.

I think that HST had the right idea. He was under no illusion that drugs were just a bunch of fun and that life was a carnival. Of course, the man killed himself at 67, so I don't know if he's a great role model. In fact, he's no better than Leary, he just went over the deep end of hedonism instead.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/453917-we-are-all-wired-int...

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#78

Post by JUDAS » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#79

Post by dghughes » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

throwaway98371 wrote: post #63

jdietrich wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a rather worrying trend of psychedelics being "sold" as a safe panacea. If you believe the cheerleaders, psychedelics are powerful enough to rapidly cure mental illness and facilitate profoundly positive personality changes, but have only trivial side-effects. That doesn't seem particularly plausible to me - there aren't many medicines that are both very potent and very safe. The stereotype of the burned-out…

I grew up in a really conservative, deeply religious (Protestant Christian) family. My parents loved me and did their best to raise me according to their beliefs, but their beliefs were both absurdly strict and also ridiculously unsupportable by the scientific evidence that, as a book- and science-obsessed teenager, I was absorbing at a rapid pace. Given that I was quickly disbelieving everything I had been raised to…

Isn't that just as bad?

People who only believe what the Bible says is right versus people taking a drug and accepting its effects as the real truth.

Both sides should know themselves without external devices forcing a certain "truth" on them.

Re: Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs

#80

Post by robotbikes » Sun, Jul 01, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

grosjona wrote: post #32

Drugs desensitise people to life's "regular highs" which makes them seek out stronger, more stimulating experiences in their lives, which makes them want more money (since these experiences tend to be expensive), which makes people more competitive in the workplace/marketplace (and more likely to be dishonest and prioritise short term gains)... This makes it harder for non-drug-users to compete in the workplace/marke…

This comment is funny on a lot of levels, especially because it contradicts the standard stereotypes about drug use. People have said many things about the I'll impact of using drugs but making people ruthlessly competing for resources so they can have more fun while high is not one of them. On the other hand a drug like cocaine has been associated with this type of stereotype and could be seen as a factor fueling the conspicuous consumption of resources by the ultra-rich.

Marijuana and psychedelics in general tend to have been associated with influencing people to be less obsessed with materialistic ambitions. But really drugs in and of themselves are heavily influenced by the culture surrounding them and the experiences through which people engage in them. The marijuana capitalists could certainly attempt to market weed in such a way that people feel like they haven't really lived unless theyve done X while high but that is just an echo of the booze laden bikini beer commercials etc that the alcohol industry pushes.

At some point I could see certain environments having social norms that push people to try drugs that would otherwise not just like it can be difficult to hang out in a bar without drinking if you otherwise don't have a personal prohibition against drinking alcohol. But weighing the damage caused by prohibition which is ultimately could been seen as being abused as an easy way to control minority communities through repression by the hands of the police and also facilitating the lucrative and oftentimes violent drug trade. If you look at Nixon's rational for creating the war on drugs it was very much about social control and repression and very little about health concerns.

I think that even Timothy Leary advocated at one time for something akin to a pilots license to get legal access to powerful psychedelics. They are not toys and the way it is now the stigma and black market make it far more likely for them to be misused than in a world where they were treated with an appropriate level of respect in terms of their potential uses. Very few cultures that utilize altered states of consciousness do so without a certain level of ritual and cultural respect for their power.