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Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

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Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#131

Post by shawnz »

jaggederest wrote: post #76
eigenvalue wrote: post #43

It's fascinating to me that a pure element would have such immediate and significant effects on the human mind. I would think that this would generally require a more complex molecular shape that can fit with various receptors in the body and trigger the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters. Apparently, Xenon does this by acting as an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, a subtype of glu…

My understanding of mechanisms from a chemistry perspective is that the anesthetics mess with the phospholipid bilayer making up the cell membrane in a way that closes off receptors. So it makes intuitive sense that dissolving giant xenon molecules in a layer could mess with it from a pure physical perspective. What's weird, to my mind, is that other noble gases don't have any effect - you'd expect a gradient.

Other noble gases can also produce anesthesia, they just aren't as effective and so require pressures above atmospheric pressure for it to work. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalational_anesthetic#Hype...

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#132

Post by Projectiboga »

perihelions wrote: post #105
abirch wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminded me of college when they taught us: you don't ride in an elevator with a nitrogen tank because it can displace the oxygen in seconds.

We broke major safety rules doing the opposite. Carrying various steel tanks up stairs that were way too heavy for two, under-gymed, college students, one step at a time, resting the tank on every step while half of it cantilevered over the edge, as we hand-stabilized it... I wanted to avoid thinking about that failure mode where you accidentally cleave some part of the gas regulator by damaging it, and that turns th…

Also the regulator is supposed to be off before it is moved.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#133

Post by cess11 »

golergka wrote: post #127
pfdietz wrote: post #126

It's a shame xenon is an anesthetic. If it did not have that effect, one could pressure xenon until it was the same density as the body. It would still be a gas, and one could include some oxygen in it so one wouldn't suffocate (although breathing could be more laborious, perhaps require mechanical support). Suspended in this gas, one could be subjected to much higher acceleration without injury, up the point that de…

If you mean to use it for space travel, may be xenon being an anaesthetic is a feature, not a bug?

It's a potent dissociative, you'll black out before you reach concentrations required for this purpose.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#134

Post by cess11 »

lazide wrote: post #118
Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unconscious from the hypoxia? Why don’t recreational nitrous users mix in some oxygen like medical users do?

You don’t know many drug users eh?

Kind of weird question, since a clear majority of people are drug users and they are almost certain to know some of those.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#135

Post by rabite »

k8sagic wrote: post #109
rabite wrote: post #88

I've done Xenon a fair number of times, it is definitely the Rolls Royce of inhalants. I'd recommend it to anyone as long as you can divert a little and aren't paying for it yourself. If you don't have unlimited amounts of money, it simply is not worth it. If you're looking for a great NMDA inhalant experience I'd recommend another classic 19th century anesthetic, diethyl ether. It is extremely simple to produce -- h…

How is it compared to lsd or ketamine? Is it like suddenly an lsd trip and than suddenly out again?

No, it is like being subsumed into the aura of angels. Like a gate to heaven has opened and is oppressing you with joyous radiation.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#136

Post by lazide »

cess11 wrote: post #134
lazide wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t know many drug users eh?

Kind of weird question, since a clear majority of people are drug users and they are almost certain to know some of those.

Also known as a [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question].

Are many recreational drug users responsible about what they put in their bodies? Yes. The long lived in particular.

Do some recreational drug users find it a point of pride about how recklessly indifferent they can be about what they put in their bodies? Also yes.

There is also definitely a (small) subset of recreational drug users which actively seek out the worst possible things they can do to their bodies. The drug world version of [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugchasing].

I’m generally indifferent to recreational drug use, and have friends who are avidly in the first two categories. I’ve known people in the last, but found them too dangerous (and heartbreaking) to be around. Let’s not pretend they don’t exist.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#137

Post by rabite »

lazide wrote: post #124
k8sagic wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it compared to lsd or ketamine? Is it like suddenly an lsd trip and than suddenly out again?

“The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This quote doesn't really describe ether at all. I'm not even particularly inclined to stand up while I'm doing ether, much less engage in depravity. I recommend for a more accurate account that you read what Oliver Wendell Holmes said about it.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#138

Post by cess11 »

mrob wrote: post #52
alan-hn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people also consider ketamine a psychedelic and the primary mechanism of action is NMDA antagonism preferring the NR2B subunit

It's common to distinguish between "psychedelics", which primarily function via serotonin receptors, and "dissociatives", which primarily function via NMDA receptors.

Not really. Cannabis and salvinorins are commonly used for psychedelic effects. Many psychedelic compounds cause dissociation, e.g. LSD.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#139

Post by rabite »

racional wrote: post #129
rabite wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bandera and his nazis Bandera was fighting against the Nazis by the end of the war. At any given time, he was doing what was prudent for his country and getting resources to fight the Cheka, because the Soviets were disappearing Ukrainians in the middle of the night and sending them to gulags. Appreciating Ukrainian cultural traditions is not political. "Slava Ukraini" should not be a political or offensive phrase,…

At any given time, he was doing what was prudent for his country By which you must mean his issuing the Act of Restoration of the Ukrainian State, which famously states: 3. The newly formed Ukrainian state will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself…

Yes, absolutely, the Soviet Union and its Secret Police were an active threat to Ukrainians every day. Adolf Hitler was not.

Though Bandera did work with the Nazis, he later worked against them. They weren't ideologically into Nazism.

Even Karaite Jews in Ukraine joined SS regiments at some points. They didn't love Hitler, everyone knew Hitler was a stinker. They were just more immediately concerned with the immediate threat of forced starvation or torture in a gulag.

Re: Tripping on Xenon Gas (2023)

#140

Post by racional »

ossobuco wrote: post #100
rabite wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "Slava Ukraini" predates the OUN by actual decades. There are plenty of people in Ukraine, particularly East Ukraine, that have personal objections to the mythos of Bandera as a national hero that still use the phrase, as it was coined in the Ukrainian War of Independence. Comparing it to "Sieg Heil" is utterly disingenuous. Regardless, your summary of Bandera and the OUN is delusionally ethnocentric and c…

> The phrase "Slava Ukraini" predates the OUN by actual decades > Comparing it to "Sieg Heil" is utterly disingenuous. LOL I'll introduce you to the fact that Sieg Heil originated in Germany around the 1900, way before the nazis got the power. The roman salute was used by the Roman empire, the earliest known use of the swastika dates the 4th centure BCE. Yet none of this symbols/gestures are accepted today, because t…

Sieg Heil originated in Germany around the 1900, etc

A broken analogy. The difference lies in the fact that these symbols were utterly obscure to German public before the Nazis introduced them in the early 1920s; though they had previous incarnations, in essence the Nazis reinvented them. In fact, they were so successful at it that most people are surprised to learn that these symbols had prior origins.

The situation with "Slava Ukraini" is entirely different. It first appeared in a poem of Shevchenko in 1840, and gained widespread traction during the War of Independence. It was then co-opted by the OUN, but the point is, by that time it had its own "legs" as a slogan rooted in Ukrainian national consciousness, completely independent of Bandera and his program.

And used today, it has no fascist connotations, and does not indicate support for Bandera or the OUN. That's just a simple fact. You obviously want the slogan to mean something different in the current context -- but we're talking about a country of 44 million people here, and if you have any interaction at all with this society, it's perfectly obvious and clear what they mean by it. I take their word over yours.

The Poles have long gotten over all this history too, of course. They know what happened in those years, but they know that what's happening in the current day is infinitely more important. They know there's a fascist aggressor to the East which threatens their survival as a people, and it isn't Ukraine.

Your attempts to conflate the slogan with a meaning it simply doesn't have are disingenuous. You're clearly not interested in what's historically accurate, or what describes the feelings and intents of people who use slogans like "Slava Ukraini" today.

You're only interested in this stuff as scare imagery -- as a way to push people's buttons.

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