Popular? I can count on one hand the number of people IRL who have admitted to taking psychedelics. They don't seem popular, Taylor Swift is popular.
Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
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Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#22I have been partaking in them for the majority of my adult life. Looking at this data I’m surprised the number is not higher - 8%. My own impression is that it’s taking so long because even people familiar with them, like me, don’t actually reach for them all that often. They’re not habit forming. And talking about psychedelic experiences is a bit like talking about your dreams - it’s boring and personal.
Also you don’t know how the other person will react. They might erroneously equate psilocybin with PCP or other unrelated drug classes and look at you negatively
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#23[flagged]
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to try it because of risk to my mental health. The 40+ year old psychedelic enthusiasts I know are just not all there. Plus it can trigger schizophrenia, etc.
Same - and this isn't discussed enough in Tech circles. I know a girl who's done acid 100 times, and she's pretty "off." Kind of like a record left in the sun for a bit. She's not dumb or anything, just a little sideways. Not in a good way either - in a "can't hold a job or relationship together" way.
People with ADHD are VERY overrepresented in substance use, and "Can't hold a job or relationship together" is an ADHD trait as well, maybe like me she enjoys being a bit whacked in the head by something to deal with the incredibly boring, mundane, slow-moving, uncreative reality most of us live in.
Or acid fried her brain, but I'm sceptical.
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#25I have been partaking in them for the majority of my adult life. Looking at this data I’m surprised the number is not higher - 8%. My own impression is that it’s taking so long because even people familiar with them, like me, don’t actually reach for them all that often. They’re not habit forming. And talking about psychedelic experiences is a bit like talking about your dreams - it’s boring and personal.
The overall usage in the population is low because psychedelics are unpredictable. They can have long term effects on the human psyche and there is a correctly ingrained notion in society that they are dangerous to a stable mindset.
I pretty much agree. Even if we accept that psychedelics are medicinal, there's still the paradigm that you only take medication when you are sick, and it has to be the right medication too. I do think they can help some people, but it also feels like it's being pumped way too hard as curing basically everything with little discussion of the side effects.
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#26Dismissing possible negative effects of psychedelics with a comparison to caffeine and nicotine feels off. Psychedelics are much more intense than either - on a different scale, to the point they are emotionally draining. Otherwise, I can dig it. There are a variety of factors.
Someone I knew developed psychosis and eventually committed suicide. I'm not close enough to know the full diagnosis but my understanding was that they the psychosis was brought on by drug abuse, possibly "2cb" but who knows what you're really consuming in random pills...
A friend once pointed out that much discussion around drugs is completely polarised. Either drugs are evil and we must root it from the face of this earth or cannabis and psilocybin are wonder cures that fix everything from back pain and anxiety to IBS and writers block.
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#27Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#28They're not as easy to confidently and safely get as weed or coke. The first time you do acid you get a little tab that could be anything. This is probably also the reason (I guess) shrooms are more popular than acid - you can grow them and you can see that they are literal mushrooms, rather than some mysterious chemical substance made by your friend's boyfriend's cousin's roommate.
Isn't LSD easy to make if you have a high school level of understanding of chemistry? Not as easy as growing shrooms, but still it shouldn't be as hard as cooking meth.
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#29They're not as easy to confidently and safely get as weed or coke. The first time you do acid you get a little tab that could be anything. This is probably also the reason (I guess) shrooms are more popular than acid - you can grow them and you can see that they are literal mushrooms, rather than some mysterious chemical substance made by your friend's boyfriend's cousin's roommate.
FUD. Just because you can't see the acid doesn't mean it's more likely to be "contaminated" or "something else".
Coke on the other hand is essentially always mixed with something, and sometimes the dealer might squeeze in a bit of whatever to hook you on his product.
Re: Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?
#30Dismissing possible negative effects of psychedelics with a comparison to caffeine and nicotine feels off. Psychedelics are much more intense than either - on a different scale, to the point they are emotionally draining. Otherwise, I can dig it. There are a variety of factors.
After 1st psychedelic experience “damn, everyone should try this”. After further experience, no longer a huge proponent. A new user has to make a mental commitment that they will be changed and they themselves take responsibility for that and own the positives and negatives and can’t externalize that blame, otherwise they’re going to have a bad reality going forwards. My first experience was late 30s, I don’t know wh…
> A bad trip does equip you with a lot of confidence and resilience in yourself and your mental strength to almost get through anything
Just out of curiosity, do you mean the person's self-confidence may dramatically improve with use? The only reason is because I had a recent co-worker who was laid off after taking psychedelics for a decent period of time. He effectively stopped contributing to the team and started making concerted efforts to get the CEO to establish a new, special position for him so that "real work" could get done and the "company would function 100x better."
Seeing the before and after was fairly dramatic. I tried to encourage them to stop using, but that "self-confidence" was so over the top that they ignored all of us and eventually lost their job.