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I take illegal drugs for inspiration

susanblackmore.co.uk

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Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#71

Post by Vivtek »

Alex3917 wrote: post #16
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'm not sure I would want to be married to someone I could only stand because I took drugs." That's not how it works. The drugs allow you to explore feelings that you're otherwise not able to explore, and work through whatever emotional roadblocks you're having with your partner. Essentially it lets you find the source of your anxiety and problems, when normally you'd just be really anxious and unhappy all the time…

The love and empathy part is just what allows you to fix your relationship, it's not actually what fixes it.

This is akin to taking meds to suppress panic attacks in order to undergo therapy to truly circumvent the panic/agoraphobia loop. The drug is a tool; it can't relieve you of the responsibility to do the work yourself (no matter what lazy people may want to believe).

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#72

Post by hugh3 »

cosgroveb wrote: post #70
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…

You think it is immoral to do anything illegal? Any action that is not yielding completely to authority (unless in the context of very public "courageous" civil disobedience) is just plain wrong? Even if your actions don't harm anyone else? I can't really agree with that ethos because you're outsourcing your own moral compass to lawmakers. By your logic, having gay sex is immoral in jurisdictions where sodomy is crim…

You think it is immoral to do anything illegal? Any action that is not yielding completely to authority (unless in the context of very public "courageous" civil disobedience) is just plain wrong? Even if your actions don't harm anyone else? I can't really agree with that ethos because you're outsourcing your own moral compass to lawmakers. By your logic, having gay sex is immoral in jurisdictions where sodomy is criminalized.

If you live in a jurisdiction where sodomy is criminalized, then that is an intolerable situation which should not be allowed to stand. Even if you personally are smart enough to get away with it then undoubtedly there's some poor innocent who isn't going to get away with it. If you find yourself in a situaion like that you're morally obliged to either:

a) Leave, or

b) Actively campaign to change that law. If you choose to do it via civil disobedience then good luck to you... otherwise just get to work on campaigning.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#73

Post by cosgroveb »

hugh3 wrote: post #72
cosgroveb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it is immoral to do anything illegal? Any action that is not yielding completely to authority (unless in the context of very public "courageous" civil disobedience) is just plain wrong? Even if your actions don't harm anyone else? I can't really agree with that ethos because you're outsourcing your own moral compass to lawmakers. By your logic, having gay sex is immoral in jurisdictions where sodomy is crim…

You think it is immoral to do anything illegal? Any action that is not yielding completely to authority (unless in the context of very public "courageous" civil disobedience) is just plain wrong? Even if your actions don't harm anyone else? I can't really agree with that ethos because you're outsourcing your own moral compass to lawmakers. By your logic, having gay sex is immoral in jurisdictions where sodomy is crim…

Try telling that to someone who actually has a lot to lose by taking either path. Say they are too poor to leave and in an authoritarian state. Or maybe they face retaliation at the workplace in an otherwise free country for their activism.

Each person needs to make these decisions for themselves while you are getting all high and mighty and calling people immoral for not either:

A) submitting to authority unquestioningly

-or-

B) risking everything to change the laws.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#74

Post by cromulent »

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…

You are probably not the only person to use the current boundaries of the law as an outer limit of your morality, but as you say, many people do not. People's morals vary and I'm not sure how far you will get by advancing your own particular moral code on others on this forum.

Most people would agree that in general, when living in a society, you should try to behave in a way that does not adversely affect that society. Is that the same thing as never breaking the law? People have different moralities, and they do not always closely track with the local laws where they live in all cases. Many people judge that their personal consumption of drugs does not adversely affect society in any significance, especially given that drug taking is common in society, and that there are legal drugs that are bad for society.

Judging whether something is good or bad is fairly easy with something like murder. Judging whether it's OK for you to smoke some of the weed your friend grew is very different. Morality is more complex than "is it illegal?".

The danger from the consideration that illegal acts are immoral is the reverse - legal acts are moral. I'm sure we can all think of legal acts that we would consider immoral. Is it immoral to smoke a Cuban cigar? Is it immoral to use a differently-sourced cigar the way Bill Clinton did? One is illegal, the other is not.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#75

Post by killerdark »

pnathan wrote: post #68
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 agree with you. But the conception of following the law is not a popular one in online culture. oh, to put it another way: geeks align hard towards chaotic good.

I dare you. I dare you, to not break the law in the location you are currently in, for a period of 24 hours. Unless you resort to not moving, you will be breaking a law (although that might be illegal as well). In most developed nations, you are dealing with a layer of international, national and local laws, with a history of several hundred years. Many of these old laws have not been revoked however, they are just no longer enforced.

"Oh" you say now, "I mean I just follow the laws that are still enforced actively". To that I say, "so do I". But I might just have a different set of laws I consider enforced than you do. That doesn't make me more or less moral than you. We both break the letter of the law. And we both hold ourselves to our own moral standards.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#76

Post by redwood »

michaelochurch wrote: post #8
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've known a lot of people who've used drugs in different ways, and my observation is that people tend to attribute far too much, in terms of their own cognitive ability and potential, to the drugs. (Example: "Because of LSD, I was able to see past ." How does this person know he couldn't have seen past it without it?) People who use a lot of psychedelics (in my moderate amount of experience) tend to see reality thro…

Your points are all valid. Nevertheless the amount drugs have contributed to various creative and technological innovations cannot be quantified. Things we all enjoy were at least aided by them. Thus drugs, whether we like it or not, are a part of what we have and who we are.

This is true nowhere more than in Northern California where we're also uniquely a land of pioneers, and eccentrics. We are all of the above and it's not clear which is cause or effect. Nevertheless, this hodge-podge has led to a center of innovation and a culture that seeks to overthrow traditions. For many individuals drugs are important in their own cultural development, how they see the world, etc.

Like the woman says in the article: drugs can help people 'see the top of the mountain', so they realize they don't need to keep on doing what they were otherwise doing. If you've personally not experienced this, that's fine, but please don't diminish important experiences from others, solely because you don't like the idea of requiring an external adulterant to achieve.

Keep in mind we're all reliant on adulterants, whether they're friends, education, caffeine, or a walk in the woods like you say. All of this is life experience, and we are life.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#77

Post by redwood »

michaelochurch wrote: post #35
5l wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you can truly experience reality through their eyes you simply don't know if what they have gained would have been possible without drugs. I, for example, don't believe in God. But I would never be so arrogant as to claim that people who do cannot reach a more complete understanding of themselves or their potential, or that this understanding is somehow more shallow than my perspective on the world. Even if I…

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…

Totally hear you, and that's why I've always said "dumb people do dumb stuff on drugs". Brilliant people have very interesting experiences on drugs. One of the reasons university is such an important community to experiment in!

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#78

Post by Vivtek »

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…

When my wife was being treated for PD, she tried Xanax and hated it. She said it felt as though she was still having a panic attack but just couldn't act on it - which, for her, was even scarier.

People's minds are weird things.

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#79

Post by redwood »

thwarted wrote: post #44
araneae wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that losing a child gives you real information about your surroundings. Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply changes the way your brain interprets that same information. I can see why people would enjoy this, but not how they could take it seriously. Taking drugs breaks the way your brain is supposed to function; I mean that quite literally. I mean, if I introduced…

Taking LSD doesn't allow you to take in any different input- it simply changes the way your brain interprets that same information. I can see why people would enjoy this, but not how they could take it seriously. Asserting that "simply changing" the way inputs are interpreted provides nothing of value seems odd on a site where a lot of the participants are programmers who regularly take input and massage it through i…

Great point, bit more specific than I was thinking but spot on: science is a field which uses new tools, mechanisms, and systems of measurement to continue looking at the same universe but determine more specifics from it!

Re: I take illegal drugs for inspiration

#80

Post by jng »

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…

Ah, how sweet the naivete!
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