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Notes from the SF peptide scene

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Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#31

Post by tptacek »

Aurornis wrote: post #28
stickfigure wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not presented as authoritative anything, except perhaps one person's experience. And we should assume it is embellished. You are taking this far too seriously. It is a vignette which captures the flavor of a place at a particular time. And it is delightfully written.

> It is a vignette which captures the flavor of a place at a particular time. That’s my point: It captured a specific party with a small group of friends, but the blog goes on to wax philosophically about how it’s indicative of society and tech as a whole It’s a perfect motte-and-bailey setup where you’re supposed to read it as a big trend indicative of a place and a scene, but the second anyone criticizes the writin…

I think you're on tilt with this argument now. This is a personal essay. You disagree with some of its implications. That's fine. People disagree with each other. You should just write "I disagree with this", rather than try to critique it as formally bad journalism.

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#32

Post by Aurornis »

lanyard-textile wrote: post #27
Aurornis wrote: post #6

This article is an anecdote extrapolated to something bigger: A type of lazy writing where the writer has a single social experience with a group of weird people and then writes about it like it’s the common experience in a place. The writer went to SF for a few days and went to one party where a group of friends were into peptides. From the article, they were also particularly terrible people. Just read this quote:…

I'm inclined to agree. But... I'm also inclined to believe we are not the cool people being invited to these circles :) Looking at what has happened with wegovy etc, it doesn't seem impossible.

Maybe this hits different for me because I have been to a lot of parties just like this, without getting sucked into the culture.

Thats why I wrote that if you go back several years you’d find similar small social scenes around different trends: Steroids, Modafinil (when it was new and rare), RCs like 2-FA and MXE, or psychedelics depending on the era. Each time the social scenes that emerge around these have the same beliefs that everyone is doing excessive experimentation and that it’s only improving their lives. The later outcomes are not so rosy.

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#33

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

This article is an anecdote extrapolated to something bigger: A type of lazy writing where the writer has a single social experience with a group of weird people and then writes about it like it’s the common experience in a place. The writer went to SF for a few days and went to one party where a group of friends were into peptides. From the article, they were also particularly terrible people. Just read this quote:…

JFC, that twink thing is freaking me out. My ex, objectively hot and already too thin due to a gallbladder problem, kept bugging me to get her various GLP-1 drugs and we had screaming arguments about how her drug abuse was going to kill her (recreational ketamine, GHB, cocaine, marijuana, whatever peptide stupidity her friends just read about, probably a few I'm forgetting). Fast forward and she's not my problem anymore. I have no idea what's she's on now, but I fully expect to get a call about her having ODed.

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#34

Post by Aurornis »

tptacek wrote: post #31
Aurornis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a vignette which captures the flavor of a place at a particular time. That’s my point: It captured a specific party with a small group of friends, but the blog goes on to wax philosophically about how it’s indicative of society and tech as a whole It’s a perfect motte-and-bailey setup where you’re supposed to read it as a big trend indicative of a place and a scene, but the second anyone criticizes the writin…

I think you're on tilt with this argument now. This is a personal essay. You disagree with some of its implications. That's fine. People disagree with each other. You should just write "I disagree with this", rather than try to critique it as formally bad journalism.

I think you’re too stuck on the word “journalism” in my post, as if reclassifying something as not-journalism means it must not be critiqued.

If it helps, s/journalism/writing/g

If we’re not allowed to discuss posts in the comments, what are we even supposed to discuss here?

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#37

Post by pphysch »

adregan wrote: post #19

I’m not really understanding the notion that these people are so sincere. Perhaps we have different definitions of sincerity. To my eye, the entire fascination of unsafely injecting peptides in a desire to change your being is largely the opposite of sincerity.

Yeah, isn't the entire point of SF startup culture (for the last decade++) to build personal wealth through a successful exit rather than build a sustainable business that benefits society? It's a big speculative con game... Opposite of sincere.

Of course we can warp the semantics and argue that these people are "sincere" in their desire to defraud retail investors or something, but that doesn't seem to be the author's argument.

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#39

Post by lucaslazarus »

Aurornis wrote: post #6

This article is an anecdote extrapolated to something bigger: A type of lazy writing where the writer has a single social experience with a group of weird people and then writes about it like it’s the common experience in a place. The writer went to SF for a few days and went to one party where a group of friends were into peptides. From the article, they were also particularly terrible people. Just read this quote:…

Your criticism is entirely reasonable despite the pedantry. Yes, these people are bad people, but I think that could be the point here. Not to mention, this is just another chapter in SF's long history of being the vanguard of drug experimentation.

You may enjoy Didion's 1967 Slouching towards Bethlehem[1], a similarly anecdotal (and substantially better-written) piece about the drug scene in SF's Summer of Love.

[1] https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/06/didion/

Re: Notes from the SF peptide scene

#40

Post by iwontberude »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #17
Aurornis wrote: post #6

This article is an anecdote extrapolated to something bigger: A type of lazy writing where the writer has a single social experience with a group of weird people and then writes about it like it’s the common experience in a place. The writer went to SF for a few days and went to one party where a group of friends were into peptides. From the article, they were also particularly terrible people. Just read this quote:…

They did point out, with numbers, that the SF scene is a lot smaller than would ordinarily be expected. Additionally this is the party scene which is a subset of the general tech scene. These people have more time and money to spare than those who are busy working but they do form a bit of a nexus that channels information. The blog post seems to go to great lengths not to pretend that it is something that it isn’t.…

In what way did SF catch up? I don’t see how people taking all these peptides and transforming into accidental freaks is a step forward for anything but another reason for the state to get involved bc it’s going to be kids using next and it will create an uproar. People with legitimate medical needs will be left up a creek.
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