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LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

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Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#21
Is it the same six people that keep posting this every 6 to 12 weeks on here?

The usual caveats apply:

1. lsd is illegal, so no quality control and no certainty that that is what you are ingesting.

2. lsd was and is a mythological drug in every sense of the word. Nothing you know about it is true either to the good or to the bad.

3. Just because there are 5 decades of propaganda about the evils of lsd does not mean that there is nothing bad about it.

4. Be skeptical, read the literature; understand the risks you are taking.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#22
I did some LSD about 35 years ago. More than once.

For a few days afterward it utterly knackered my ability to write good code, or do anything that required concentrated, logical thinking. Also, I felt like crap (think "bad mental hangover" without the horrible side-effects caused by alcohol).

That said, it was a pretty interesting experience. I highly recommend it, just not habitually. Someone (Timothy Leary?) said that the best way to do LSD would be in a sunny English meadow with the Archbishop of Canterbury as your companion.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#23
Participants eager to describe their modern-day spiritual LSD experiences were encouraged to contribute to a library of drug experiences on the Erowid website

Reminded me of a paper I've been meaning to read where machine learning was applied to erowid reports of different substances:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0312

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 10,000 people died in drink driving incidents in the US along last year. Distraction from mobile phones also led to thousands of accidents, should they be illegal too? Let's now throw the baby out with the bathwater.

> Distraction from mobile phones also led to thousands of accidents, should they be illegal too? When using any type of vehicle in public areas: Absolutely. And they already are in many places [1] (at least under certain conditions). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...

I think he meant mobile phones being illegal.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#25

I've always wanted to experiment with taking small doses of LSD (~10-20ug) reguarly. I thought it would be an interesting experience, since I tend to feel more personable on LSD, especially during the come up/come down from it.

I've actually been doing that on and off since I think around last August. I've found it tremendously beneficial to overall feeling of well being, as well as my work ethic. Especially for programming, I feel much more involved and interested in my work so am usually able to work at a much faster pace. I also share the feeling of being more personable on LSD, as the days when I do microdose, I tend to have far better…

I'd be very interested in experimenting with low doses of certain psychedelics, but the unknown quality, unknown provenance, full dose approach just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I wonder where you could find good quality crystal (or somehow measurable) LSD unless you pal around with very cool chemists. That's the big problem with interesting sounding illegal dugs.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#27
post #16

Well, I'm still waiting for the fellowship of LSD-fueled Übermenschen to emerge. Until then I'll just try to eat well, exercise more and get enough sleep. That seems to be the key for most elite developers I've encountered.

Hmm. Maintaining your health in the standard ways is really good. Please keep it up. I'll try, too.

But it bothers me a little bit when you seem put it as if LSD fails at being some kind of neo-caffeine that makes people smarter, more productive, etc.

It really does fail to do that. But that's not how it helps. It's not necessarily that it gives you the answers to the questions you're asking -- it's more like it helps you get perspective and perhaps realize you could be asking better questions.

To me it's as if we typically get kind of tunnel vision of the mind. Imagine if, for a few hours, you could zoom out from your current vantage point, see it compressed, as if from a great height, or maybe at high speed, and suddenly it's much easier to see structures that were much too big/subtle/slow to appreciate before. Or you at least get an inkling that such things exist and that you might want to look for them.

It's very frustrating to evangelize LSD sometimes because it probably will not help you in the ways you care about right now. But it very well may help you in ways you literally cannot understand right now.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#29

I've always wanted to experiment with taking small doses of LSD (~10-20ug) reguarly. I thought it would be an interesting experience, since I tend to feel more personable on LSD, especially during the come up/come down from it.

But see http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)

#30

I did some LSD about 35 years ago. More than once. For a few days afterward it utterly knackered my ability to write good code, or do anything that required concentrated, logical thinking. Also, I felt like crap (think "bad mental hangover" without the horrible side-effects caused by alcohol). That said, it was a pretty interesting experience. I highly recommend it, just not habitually. Someone (Timothy Leary?) said…

I know some people who take LSD habitually and I can't imagine how they do it. Personally I'm like you, it feels amazing and is a great way to relax, but I need about a day or two afterward to really let the whole experience settle in.
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