I take illegal drugs for inspiration • Hacker News Board

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#51

Post by hugh3 » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:16 PM UTC

What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below?

Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it willy-nilly. The cost of people taking illegal drugs is huge, from the drain on police and prison resources to the creation of the organized crime rings which support the drug industry, and if you're taking illegal drugs you're responsible for all of that. If you are correct and drug laws are unjust then... well shit, changing them is an important task for you, and you should get cracking on that.

Right now there's no great consensus over whether drug laws are just or unjust, but the majority wants to keep drugs illegal, even in California which recently failed to pass (by a huge majority) a legalization of marijuana. If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?

Yes, there are circumstances when it is acceptable to break a law which you regard as unjust. One such circumstance is civil disobedience, where you break an unjust law with the intention of getting caught and punished so that you can bring attention to how unjust that law is, but if you're not (courageously) trying to get caught and punished you're not a civil disobedient. Another such circumstance is if the law is so horrendously unjust that following it will directly harm others, but that certainly doesn't apply in this case.

In conclusion, if you want to take drugs then campaign for drug legalization. But don't go round breaking the democratically-devised law in the meantime.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#52

Post by rntz » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #43

Alex3917 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I prefer meditation's failure mode, which is no experience, to that of drug use, which is negative experience." You can actually develop 'meditation sickness', which is essentially psychosis brought on from either excessive meditation or else meditation the wrong way. It's not super common, but it's still generally advised that people not take up a meditation practice without expert supervision.

What is "excessive" meditation? People die after playing video games for 16 hours, but no one is going to argue that playing them for a couple hours a day is physically dangerous. I generally think the "meditation sickness" is more scare than substance, without much evidence for a causative link, but I think it's possible in certain circumstances. For example, I've heard of inexperienced people (i.e. people who've ta…

> People die after playing video games for 16 hours

Really? In what context? Do you have a link or citation I could read?

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#53

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

5l wrote: post #45

michaelochurch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a fair point, and we can only reason from what we've seen. What I've seen is a LOT of false enlightenment in a certain subculture. Hang out for a few hours with the drugged-out burnouts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to get a sense of it. There's a certain arrogant, self-congratulatory nihilism in the "hipster" culture, and if it's taken more seriously than it deserves, it leads to some very bad places. Is it the…

I agree for the most part, and I apologise if I came off over strong in my last post. For what it's worth I have spent a great deal of time in the company of such people. Perhaps it's the case that the majority are simply living in a deluded drug-addled mist, and certainly a great many are hedonists first and last, and would be happy to admit it. The thing is though, I see a lot of false enlightenment everywhere . Th…

I think you're right on a lot of this. I guess that all I would say is that the proportions are different. You're more likely to find false prophets, psychosis, and disturbing detachment from reality in Williamsburg drug culture than in monastic Buddhism, but this is a contrived comparison that maybe doesn't mean very much. Still, I'd much rather (in the distant future when I'm raising kids) find out that my 17-year-old kid was practicing Zen Buddhism than find out that he or she was using LSD. If the latter, I'd do everything I could to encourage him or her to use it safely and in an intelligent way, but I'd still prefer the former. And I'd definitely let a child attend a meditation retreat if I thought he was ready; I wouldn't give help him or her find LSD, though.

I'm a pragmatist at heart, much more than a moralist. If drugs can make peoples' lives better, they should be used.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#54

Post by btilly » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:21 PM UTC

nico wrote: post #47

sigil wrote: post #26

For both individuals and society, all drugs present a dilemma: are they worth the risks to health, wealth and sanity? For me, the pay-off is the scientific inspiration, the wealth of new ideas and the spur to inner exploration. The most prolific mathematician of all time, Paul Erdős, justified his amphetamine usage in similar terms [1]: "After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of…

The article in Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history", that doesn't mean he was the most prolific mathematician of all time. What about Euler[1] for example? (I don't think he used drugs though) Anyway, I agree with your comment in the sense that intelligence, talent or success are not mutually exclusive with drugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

How do you measure?

Erdos published more papers with more collaborators than Euler.

Euler published more pages of material and founded more areas of research than Erdos. (Yes, Euler has the benefit of having had people think about his stuff longer, and attribute more to inspiration from him. But Erdos won't ever come close to catching up.)

I think that Arthur Cayley is in third place on both measures.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#55

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:25 PM UTC

rntz wrote: post #52

michaelochurch wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "excessive" meditation? People die after playing video games for 16 hours, but no one is going to argue that playing them for a couple hours a day is physically dangerous. I generally think the "meditation sickness" is more scare than substance, without much evidence for a causative link, but I think it's possible in certain circumstances. For example, I've heard of inexperienced people (i.e. people who've ta…

> People die after playing video games for 16 hours Really? In what context? Do you have a link or citation I could read?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction#South_Kore...

There was a rumor a while back that some of these South Korean internet cafes were putting low doses of mood enhancing drugs in the air so that people got depressed when they left, though I'm pretty sure that was just an urban legend.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#56

Post by rntz » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:27 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #51

What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below? Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it…

> If you choose to live in a democratic society, why not obey the democratically ordained laws?

As opposed to choosing not to live in a democratic society? Is there some psychedelic-utopian society out there that's just like a standard first-world social-democratic country (high standard of living, good education and job opportunities, I can speak the language, etc, etc) except that drugs are legal by fiat?

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#57

Post by kinship » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:30 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #51

What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below? Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it…

As someone dying from cancer, medical marijuana is the only thing that allows me to eat.

Get a clue and stop bothering people.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#58

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #46

michaelochurch wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panic attacks are truly awful. I'm sorry to hear that you've had them, and more sorry to hear about your daughter. How long did your panic disorder last? How'd you get it into resolved? What therapies did you pursue, how long did they take, and how well did they work? I developed PD after making the idiotic decision to work (at a Wall Street job) through a flu-- not a cold, but actual influenza-- taking only 2 days o…

I've have panic attacks like the OP. They lasted pretty strongly for a year, then tapered off. Treatment: Basically, lots of benzos (Xanax) that I titrated myself off of over time. (Xanax is a much lower risk drug than some of the powerful ones a psych might prescribe (SSRIs, for example)). For years though, I couldn't do anything that put me in an altered state. Even taking Benadryl to sleep (which makes you groggy…

I'm on very low doses of Klonopin, which takes longer (about 30 minutes) to set in but I think that was a very good thing. First, there's no sudden change in psychological state. Sudden relaxation during panic could have a paradoxical effect. Second, it puts a 30-60 minute upper bound on the attack but still requires me to work at calming myself down. If it took effect immediately, I never would have had to go through the hard process of deliberately calming myself down, through which I learned a lot of skills that work on run-of-the-mill negative emotions as well as on panic. Thanks to that process, I'm probably actually above average in mental health post-panic. Panic disorder teaches in a very visceral way that most of the garden-variety worries are just not worth getting upset over.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#59

Post by MrScruff » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:32 PM UTC

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #15

araneae wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>same level of power as one of my children dying. See, that's terrifying to me. I've never taken LSD but I don't think I would ever want to put myself in the sort of situation that trivializes the death of a child by making it equivalent to downing a pill. This talk of using MDMA for couples' therapy because it releases vasopressin scares me too. Vasopressin is the bonding hormone, and sure, you could probably make t…

I think many people on here are missing the point about "same level of power as one of my children dying." He's only using that as a way to convey how much of a life altering event it was, not how tramatic, or depressing it is. I've never taken LSD, nor to I plan to, but every, EVERY, person I've talked to that have, talk about how it changed thier lives dramatically. It seems there are a fair ammount of people on he…

That is exactly how I see it, self hacking. The most fascinating thing about psychedelics is that they give you a momentary glimpse into what is pulling the strings behind the organism that is you. They allow you to selectively shut off or amplify the effect of different parts of your brain, which should be profoundly interesting for anyone with a hacker mindset.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#60

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 03, 2011, 6:34 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #51

What's with this rash of illegal drug articles? Am I the only one who still thinks it's morally wrong to do something that's illegal, except in certain very special circumstances set out below? Let me explain what I mean. There are just laws, and there are unjust laws. Just laws should be obeyed. Unjust laws should be changed. If you think a given law is unjust, you should be campaigning to change it, not breaking it…

I don't use any illegal drugs, but the drug laws are unjust and I don't think people who break them should be considered "morally wrong".

It can be irresponsible, in that a parent should not be engaging in activity that can lead to jail time, but it's not "immoral" and these laws shouldn't exist in the first place. The "drain" you speak of is the cost of drug prohibition, not use.