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The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

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Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#21

Post by pmoriarty »

twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #17
braingenious wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Counterpoint: I have done quite a lot of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT and they were both fun and interesting substances. My advice is: Do not stay away from drugs unless: a) that is your personal preference, b) you have a specific…

>almost always follow up with "“don’t do drugs, instead do what I tell you to do. Read my self help book or convert to my religion. My values are the best values.”" Eh, it's a fine line that once crossed, you don't get to come back from. I'm glad I stopped drugs when I did. If I could go back in time, I would have never had started doing drugs in my teenage years but unfortunately it was part of my family culture. Th…

"The problem with your advice is that it comes with the risk of grievous bodily harm."

I hope you don't ride in cars or cross streets, because they also come with risks of grievous bodily harm.

"Drugs have a high risk of being dangerous, hazardous, addicting, etc.-- that's why they're controlled substances."

Food and sex can be addictive, and plenty of people's health is ruined by them.

Also, plenty of dangerous, hazardous, and addictive drugs like alcohol and cigarettes are not controlled substances.

Psychedelic and cannabis use was associated with minorities, the counterculture, and antiwar protestors. They were seen as a threat to the status quo. Those and some sensationalistic media scares were the real reasons they were banned.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#22

Post by pmoriarty »

stuaxo wrote: post #20

Hamilton Morris' take on this - https://twitter.com/HamiltonMorris/status/150598073831904051... @HamiltonMorris · Mar 20 It's nice to see the NYTimes reporting on toad conservation, slightly less nice to see a journalist rehashing years of work done by me and the Pharmacopeia team while strenuously avoiding any attribution.

This is an article by the New Yorker, not by the NYTimes.

The article Hamilton is talking about is probably this one:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/us/toad-venom-psychedelic...

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#23

Post by braingenious »

twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #17
braingenious wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Counterpoint: I have done quite a lot of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT and they were both fun and interesting substances. My advice is: Do not stay away from drugs unless: a) that is your personal preference, b) you have a specific…

>almost always follow up with "“don’t do drugs, instead do what I tell you to do. Read my self help book or convert to my religion. My values are the best values.”" Eh, it's a fine line that once crossed, you don't get to come back from. I'm glad I stopped drugs when I did. If I could go back in time, I would have never had started doing drugs in my teenage years but unfortunately it was part of my family culture. Th…

> you seem to be representing a similar dogmatic philosophy but at the other-side of the spectrum (of drug encouragement).

My advice to do drugs is immediately followed by a qualifier that states that you should not do drugs if you would prefer not to do them. I can’t think of anything further from dogmatism than “do x thing unless you don’t feel like doing it.”

> The problem with your advice is that it comes with the risk of grievous bodily harm. Not just to one's self, in the case of: if you're predisposed to mental health problems (such as schizophrenia, etc.) or physical health problems (such as heart palpitations or other heart problems), but potentially to other people: if you're using drugs and accidentally affect someone else negatively (physically or emotionally).

This is entirely addressed by parts a and b of what I wrote.

Out of curiosity, what activities are guaranteed to not negatively affect anyone else emotionally or physically? If that’s the hard and fast rule that you live by, I’d love to know what your average day is like.

I’m glad that you figured out that you’d personally prefer not to do drugs. It’s great that you had the opportunity to gain that knowledge through direct experience. In a way, you could say that what you learned about yourself and your life through drugs was something that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise… like hidden knowledge or a personal enlightenment. I’m sure that you would agree that this deep and personal “knowledge” that you possess about drugs probably couldn’t have become so apparent and impactful to you by simply reading a comment about the concept of drugs on an article about toad venom on HN.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#24

Post by pmoriarty »

Zababa wrote: post #6
twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #4

I don't recommend it. It is incredibly intense-- even traumatic. And there is no precise "dosing". Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatievely, and never stop-- and there is no cure if they do, for example: "Hallucin…

> Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. This reminds me of something near the end of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas": > We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that w…

"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."

I'd rather take my chances with the acid culture than with the alcohol culture.

At least there's potential for profound positive healing, empathy for others, and deep contact with the natural world and a transcendent reality.

With alcohol (which Thompson himself seriously abused) the most you get is a bit of social lubrication and maybe a short-lived forgetting of your problems (which, unlike psychedelics, alcohol does not help to come to terms with), while the risks of alcohol are just as great.

I'd also argue that there's a risk to remaining psychedelically naive. The disconnection from nature -- seeing it just as a resource to be exploited -- is one of the major causes of runaway climate change. Psychedelics (though no guarantee) might help to change such attitudes for the better, as multiple studies have shown that they can foster connection and caring for nature. When used constructively, they can also help people have empathy for others -- something we desperately need.

I could go on and on about their potential benefits, but instead I'll just end by noting that it's myopic and one-sided to just look at the acid casualties without looking at all those who've been helped (not hurt) by psychedelics.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#25

Post by cwkoss »

pmoriarty wrote: post #19
jamal-kumar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this as the new yorker article kinda just scratche on it, which is a real shame considering these people have left death in their wake. Absolutely garbage journalism to somehow omit that there's murder arrest warrants out for them. There are so many psychologically manipulative, abusive people working in these spaces. Literally these people are just profiteering crackheads who got into making money…

"5-meo-dmt is extremely powerful stuff and unlike DMT it can cause you to end up in the hospital or dead" I've yet to see any definitive evidence showing that 5-MeO alone caused anyone to die. The handful of deaths I'm aware of have been from 5-MeO mixed with other substances like alcohol, and due to asphyxiation on vomit -- which can happen from alcohol alone. If you drink too much alcohol you could choke on your ow…

Have you seen someone use 5-meo before? The hamilton morris' pharmacopeia episode about 5-meo-dmt usage showed someone using it - and the state they were in made it seem extremely plausible someone could vomit and asphyxiate from that drug alone, especially if someone is using it without a trip sitter.

Great episode, but that scene is pretty disturbing.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#26

Post by cwkoss »

photochemsyn wrote: post #16
twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #4

I don't recommend it. It is incredibly intense-- even traumatic. And there is no precise "dosing". Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatievely, and never stop-- and there is no cure if they do, for example: "Hallucin…

All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol, if consumed responsibly. We accept alcohol even though drinking too much at one sitting can kill you and drunk people routinely smash their cars into other cars, etc., so 'safety' is a relative concept. Caution is clearly the best approach. However, the claim that 'hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatively and never stop' is unsupported. These drugs share a com…

> All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol

This is false. LSD and mushrooms are arguably as safe as or safer than alcohol. However...

There are hundreds other psychedelic compounds in existence, and some can acutely cause death, some even at doses close to recreational levels. Phenethylamines can all be deadly, and nboms cause extremely dangerous vasoconstriction. Some significantly lower seizure threshold.

I think the therapeutic potential for psychedelics is very promising, but there are definitely some psychedelics that are much more dangerous than alcohol.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#27

Post by survirtual »

twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #4

I don't recommend it. It is incredibly intense-- even traumatic. And there is no precise "dosing". Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatievely, and never stop-- and there is no cure if they do, for example: "Hallucin…

Have you ever hit rock bottom? Have you ever not wanted to exist anymore? I have, and it was terminal. Do you know what saved me? DMT.

DMT saves my life. And every time I wanted it to end and I chose a pipe before going through with it, I was saved again. DMT taught me many things, but most of all it taught me how to love myself and how to love life.

Mushrooms reinforced those lessons. It took me from poverty to using my natural gifts (coding, tech) in a way that added value to society & let me acquire prosperity.

If it wasn’t for psychedelics, I’d have been 6 ft under many years ago and all the good I’ve experienced and spread would have never happened.

DMT let me make contact with an eternal and boundless love. Maybe it was imagined, maybe it was real, but in any case if an illusion teaches you how to love and how to flourish, tells you that you have an important contribution to make, and sets you on a positive course — is it really an illusion? If actionable and material manifestation occurs as a result of the internal changes, then the “reality” of an experience is confirmed.

5-MeO-DMT is like a shortcut stargate straight to that eternal love. It has and will continue to save many, many lives.

You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#28

Post by [deleted] »

twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #17
braingenious wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Counterpoint: I have done quite a lot of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT and they were both fun and interesting substances. My advice is: Do not stay away from drugs unless: a) that is your personal preference, b) you have a specific…

>almost always follow up with "“don’t do drugs, instead do what I tell you to do. Read my self help book or convert to my religion. My values are the best values.”" Eh, it's a fine line that once crossed, you don't get to come back from. I'm glad I stopped drugs when I did. If I could go back in time, I would have never had started doing drugs in my teenage years but unfortunately it was part of my family culture. Th…

[deleted]

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#29

Post by sandwall »

cwkoss wrote: post #25
pmoriarty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"5-meo-dmt is extremely powerful stuff and unlike DMT it can cause you to end up in the hospital or dead" I've yet to see any definitive evidence showing that 5-MeO alone caused anyone to die. The handful of deaths I'm aware of have been from 5-MeO mixed with other substances like alcohol, and due to asphyxiation on vomit -- which can happen from alcohol alone. If you drink too much alcohol you could choke on your ow…

Have you seen someone use 5-meo before? The hamilton morris' pharmacopeia episode about 5-meo-dmt usage showed someone using it - and the state they were in made it seem extremely plausible someone could vomit and asphyxiate from that drug alone, especially if someone is using it without a trip sitter. Great episode, but that scene is pretty disturbing.

Concur, 5meo typtamines are extremely potent and quite dangerous. Witnessed overdoses and while they weren't lethal, they certainly had the risk. Just because the compound doesn't kill, doesn't mean you can't die from a secondary or tertiary effect.

Re: The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads

#30

Post by renewiltord »

twomoonsbysurf wrote: post #4

I don't recommend it. It is incredibly intense-- even traumatic. And there is no precise "dosing". Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate. Hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatievely, and never stop-- and there is no cure if they do, for example: "Hallucin…

Well, I drink coffee, so the game is up.

Despite everyone on the Internet warning me about how everything is dangerous, I have done all these things without even coming close to risking anything.

I've also noticed that people on the Internet think that a child riding their bicycle on the sidewalk is dangerous to other people on the sidewalk. So that leaves me with the natural conclusion: the threshold people pick for unacceptable risk to life and limb is on a wide distribution, so P(I_will_think_x_is_dangerous|someone_told_me) is very low.

And in the end, I've written a lot of code for a lot of people and have led successful organizations, so I know I'm not unproductive and I know I'm still not unproductive. So maybe I'm rolling the dice each time, but you know what? The fact that I've done shrooms tens of times, and alcohol hundreds of times, and LSD some ten times, and I'm able to do all of this and still be okay by society's standards has got to set a lower bound on your posterior probability after reading this comment surely.

There's a lot of nutty mysticism surrounding so many completely normal things. It's like in middle school, when we kids were discussing what condoms make you do. Some theories from the time:

- condoms make you want to kiss someone

- some kid heard about another kid's friend who wore a condom and they got a baby as a result

- another kid heard that condoms are a kind of powder

That's the state of the comments here

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