21–30 of 84 posts
Scraping and analyzing a few million reviews on tripadvisor a few months ago left me at a place where I don't trust any review site anymore. I've been thinking about solutions to this problem ever since and can't come up with anything that would reliably fix that problem.
I know a guy whose personality changed completely, and not for the better, after he took ayahuasca. Be careful.
What do you consider "not for the better"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you consider "not for the better"?
He’s vocal and somewhat threatening about his newfound religious opinions about death. I mean, he’s probably happier, but at the cost of transplanting himself to an entirely new friend group and lifestyle. The person I knew is effectively dead.
Society is sick, and I don't think the internet is helping. Information overload distracts us from looking into the experiences around and within us; is addictive and keeps us from sleeping or thinking when bored, affecting mood and energy; encourages perpetually increasing productivity without even providing a reason to be productive in the first place (beyond arbitrary societal rules); keeps many of us inside and away from sunlight or fresh air; makes it too easy to jump between shallow interests rather than sticking with one deep interest; and hides us from other people while causing us to see them as phones or handles rather than faces and behaviors. That has been my experience, anyway. There are plenty of other problems caused by misuse of technology but they're well known on this forum.
I used to wonder how people kept themselves from going insane from boredom in pre-agricultural societies. But I realized all the days where I have been most content involved taking in little information and just existing for a while, wandering around in the woods, napping, introspecting, being with friends and family I have deep relationships with, etc. I spent one summer in college almost entirely without the internet while living in a small, close, rustic community. The days seemed to last forever and I had never been so happy or felt so connected to others as an adult. Being in one place for a long time with few other people forced us to develop deeper bonds than we would have outside of a community like that.
I'm not a fan of capitalism, but I think it's a self-correcting problem. Eventually technology WILL automate all of life's difficulties and we will transition back to a simpler and more comfortable way of life as humans. It will be a while until AI gets us there though. Until then we have stimulants, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety pills to try to hammer in those aspects of humanity that make it hard to fit into contemporary society.
P.S. If you're looking for answers to "life's big questions", here they are: We and everything else are deterministic emergent patterns stemming from the laws of thermodynamics (or whatever fundamental laws exist) and an initial state (or some reference state) of the universe. That's the only solid foundation I have found for my personal philosophical and spiritual inquiries, but I spent a LONG time looking for it. You can easily answer all the big questions with an understanding of that foundation. I have finally been able to move on to smaller but more complex and practical questions without feeling like I'm missing something.
P.P.S Always read the word 'spiritual' as 'relating to the subconscious workings of the mind'. A lot of people use the word 'spiritual' in a vague mystical way, but you can adjust for that with this definition. They may not know how the brain works, but they still have brains and their spiritual experiences can still be fascinating and full of insight.
I know a guy whose personality changed completely, and not for the better, after he took ayahuasca. Be careful.
There are also stories of people dying and the locals dumping their bodies elsewhere so that they don't ruin others experiences or stop people from coming to try the 'Medicine'. IIRC, the primary drug in Ayahuasca is DMT, which can be acquired other ways (that are less likely to make you puke) than drinking their jungle juice.
"We modern smart men have figured a way to have trippy experiences without puking and going into an uncomfortable jungle with this funny superstitious shamans, we are the best!" As if doing a hit of DMT was nearly the same thing as a proper Ayahuasca ceremony done with a shaman coming from a 10.000 years lineage. Sigh.
Why appeal to the age of an authority? If there's anything measurably beneficial about Ayahuasca I'm certain it can be extracted into a precisely dosed pharmaceutical.
I know a guy whose personality changed completely, and not for the better, after he took ayahuasca. Be careful.
The way I often explain tryptamines to people who've never tried them is that it's a bit like rooting your phone. It's great and important to learn in more depth how the machine works. And yeah, you can sideload some sweet apps, but you can also brick the thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He’s vocal and somewhat threatening about his newfound religious opinions about death. I mean, he’s probably happier, but at the cost of transplanting himself to an entirely new friend group and lifestyle. The person I knew is effectively dead.
I'm interested in the 'somewhat threatening' part, can you elaborate?
“I am the throne dragon holding your eternal death inside a citrine cristal, threatening to break the crystal open so that it engulfs you back into the shroud of darkness.”
Is http://ayaadvisor.org/ a reputable source in terms of reviews? If not, how could this problem be fixed? Scraping and analyzing a few million reviews on tripadvisor a few months ago left me at a place where I don't trust any review site anymore. I've been thinking about solutions to this problem ever since and can't come up with anything that would reliably fix that problem.
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/jennifer-logan-s-death-in-pe...