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Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

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191–200 of 327 posts

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#191
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it hurts my soul when I see words like "legalize" being thrown in this context. We know very very little about effect of such drugs. That seems like exactly when we should legalize it. The default is legal, and without definite knowledge of serious harm, that should be the status. The burden of proof should be on the people who want it to be legal, and by your comment, their case seems pretty weak.

Sure, just let people use any weapon, we don't know for sure, if any particular bullet is mortal, maybe they don't cause any harm that time.

[dead]

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s your bubble. There are American states still charging people over marijuana. Having grown up Christian I personally know people in their 30s who view psychedelic and heroin users similarly. Those people would have the opposite view of you. Years back, my friend’s parents asked me to stage an intervention for him after they found out he regularly took LSD. He was 19 at the time.

Growing up my friend’s dad was a conservative christian and a frequent caller into conservative talk radio shows. There was a state referendum to legalize marijuana, so I asked what he thought. “Of course it should be legal. It says right there in Genesis—God said: I give you every herb bearing seed upon the Earth. What could be more clear-cut than that?”

[deleted]

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#194
post #85

Off-topic, but I have to... (From the photo caption) "Bill ... with his iphone prototype" Nope. That's a Sony Magic Link, built by Bill (and others, myself included) during his time at General Magic. I feel General Magic is another one of Bill's endeavors that isn't widely understood or appreciated.

Who are you sir? I am a big fan of the general magicians

My name is Jay. I guess I was one of the "lesser" magicians. I worked on the Telescript side, doing infrastructure for the Telescript engine. But I got to interact with both Bill and Andy, and Phil and Tony, who I followed to further ventures. My experience at General Magic was certainly eye opening and super educational.

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tripped a lot in my early 20s, a whole lot, and never had a bad time. Well, I had some uncomfortable experiences, but not what I can now call a bad trip. One of my first times after, in my experience, I literally went to hell. I was convinced I was on the outskirts, all the people at the party around me were demons, I was about to be tortured forever, and I was never going to see my son again and he was going to gr…

Regarding your trip to hell, I'm interested to know if you have a lifelong belief in heaven and hell, or if it came by itself during the trip. As an atheist with no supernatural beliefs (that I know of), I wonder if a trip on LSD for me would just be boring, or if these supernatural things become real during a trip even if you don't truly believe in them.

It's unlikely you'd find it boring simply because you're an atheist. The experience is typically quite intense, although it's dose-dependent as well as setting-dependent. I'm agnostic but my own experience was a heightened sense of panpsychism which went away later, because my rational, scientific mind didn't find the idea highly plausible.

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world maybe, but in the real world, most doctors are conditioned by US propaganda and the War on Drugs. Their views are compromised. Furthermore, I've had mixed experiences with health professionals. It took me 10 years across multiple clinics and states to get diagnosed with gout that I've had since at least my late teens. Laughed out of multiple doctor's offices because I'm a "healthy young male" even t…

Isn't every medicine a drug, since a drug with medical application in the right dose is just called medicine?

No.

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#198
post #32

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thought that what this country needs is more druggies running around.

Drug culture had a big influence on the creation of modern desktop computing. https://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Per... is the best-researched book I've seen on this, but after living in the bay area for 35 years and talking to lots of people, there is a lot more drug use that impacts technology than most people would expect.

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#199
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this comment is trolling. But to be clear to readers, the link states psilocybin 50% increase in lifespan of human skin etc. not human lifespan.

"[...] extended the cellular lifespan of human skin and lung cells by more than 50%" If we assume that the effect is the same for all types of cells, it follows that the life is extended by 50% (when keeping "all other factors" constant, as usual).

That's not a safe assumption.

Re: Bill Atkinson's psychedelic user interface

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Who are the proponents of “big reality”? How do they fight against its disruption?

Psychedelics challenge the post-Enlightenment project of "rational" adulthood. Western civilization has a deep myth: the myth of necessary order - a yoking of rationality, order, and progress together into what forms the basis for modernity. Psychedelics cannot have intrinsic value outside of rationality, so, they must either be accepted on the basis of rationality and order or face rejection. We express this using t…

The sheer existence of established and (partially) self-reinforcing sets of cultural standards doesn't strike me as a good basis to explore the fundamental complement of it all, or to describe it altogether as something assuredly misleading and "bad". This should be especially apparent if you've ever tried creating something that is self-justifying (it's usually a hard, valuable, and sought after effort).

Put differently, while an idea being established and self-justifying doesn't necessarily mean it's exclusive in these traits and should be bolted in, sure, an idea being fringe also doesn't necessarily mean it's unjustly fringe at all, or that it's being unfairly discriminated against. To claim so without evidence is little more than conspiratorial thinking and self-victimization.

It further sounds really quite self-serving to paint e.g. me as some misguided sheep part of some malicious cabal for this. It's a little more than just a variation on the all too common ill faith ways of argumentation; mixing in the semantic specifics of psychedelic experiences, name dropping people, movements, and quotes, and deferring to a "specific" culture's particularities serves at most as a distraction from this.

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