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LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

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Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#201

Post by michaelochurch »

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #171
michaelochurch wrote: post #145

I don't see LSD as a "geek's wonder drug", and I'm skeptical of many of its purported benefits. Are those benefits real? Sure, but so are the risks. Could most of those, for most people, be better achieved (given enough time) through other means, such as yoga and meditation? Probably. To use geek terms, recreational drug use scales very poorly. I know a fair number of people who've used LSD once or a few times and co…

A lot of the benefits that would be hard to achieve through time may be due to the shocking aspect or intensity of some of these drugs. Think of a rite of passage, it stresses people out of their normal thought/reaction/logic structure in order to help form a new one. Usually promises are made or responsibilities given that are then psychologically attached to the event. Given that, how the event is structured and to…

What you say about indigenous peyote and ayahuasca users is very true. This is a very different use pattern from U.S.-style recreational use. For one thing, non-shamanic users are using doses that we'd consider sub-psychedelic, at least most of the time. The shaman knows the person and if he or she is ready before a person is taken to a level that would be considered "tripping" by our standards. People are only taken to that point when they are ready and know what to expect. Still, you're right that these practices (indigenous/religious psychedelic use) are not especially harmful-- a lot safer than our cultural institution of heavy alcohol use.

The illegality of these drugs, in my estimation, actually encourages irresponsible use patterns, through hard-to-control dosage and intermittent access. There's definitely a mentality of "trip hard now because you may not be able to get this stuff in a year" in the U.S. psychedelic culture, and the drug laws are culpable for creating it.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#202

Post by aerique »

joelhooks wrote: post #42
parfe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in seeing any scans you might have.

I'm a little hesitant, but it is hanging here on the wall so: http://i.imgur.com/mhg4c.jpg This was an 8 hour marathon of oil pastel madness. I was in my tiny apartment with 6-8 friends and literally spent the entire time engrossed in this thing. The background was the technique that I could never get back. This was a series of this basic type of drawing I did. There were 4 and this one I like the most. Gave one away…

Those meeting drawings remind me of Ian Miller: http://www.ian-miller.org/

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#203

Post by blankslate »

anonLSD wrote: post #177

I offer some of the highlights of my personal experience with LSD, anonymously, due to the very unfortunate stigma. I'm very positive on its ability to unlock potential, trigger insights, expand perspective, and facilitate learning, even in spite of having experienced a few bad trips. Although the experience is deeply personal, I'll try to offer the most concrete accounts I can. First, of all the hundreds of little i…

There's a lot of truth here, but I think you're neglecting to give yourself the credit due for correctly assimilating it.

To me one of the more present dangers of the "acid experience" is that the tripper latches onto the alternate state they experience and devolves into crapping on about chakras, energy fields, or little elves that live in their garden; the real lesson, as you've rightly identified, is not that the new experience is objectively real - it's that our "normal" daily experience is entirely subjective.

It's not necessarily the most natural conclusion, however, and I suspect that maintaining this kind of scientific (read: sane) outlook becomes increasingly difficult with frequency and intensity of use.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#204

Post by adamdoupe »

merloen wrote: post #100
geraldalewis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add balance to the statement about asking an art student to give an opinion of your work to get your ego stroked, I had a far different experience. I went to art school, and from foundation year (where you learn a smattering of everything: drawing, painting, sculpting, etc.) to senior year (when I focused on film and animation) I constantly had my work reviewed. Sometimes I got effusive praise, and sometimes I lef…

Code review takes too much time. You can take a painting that took 100 hours to make, and start delivering useful criticism after a minute or so. Giving useful feedback on a programming project that took 100 hours will take much, much longer. Also, art is meant to be examined - that is its primary purpose. Source code, not so much.

I've found that it's not the actual code review that's helpful, but preparing for a code review. It forces you to describe the code clearly, which often makes the code clearer in the process. Plus you try to anticipate the comments your co-workers will give.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#205

Post by kragen »

geraldalewis wrote: post #97
parfe wrote: post #3

In college I lived with artists. A few of their artist friends come over with big sketch pads, pencils and whatever else artists use. They all drop acid while telling me they can't wait to see their amazing creations once their minds are opened. I went out for a few hours and came back to find them all sitting around the living room. One sketch pad had a long black squiggle on it, the same design you'd make if you fe…

To add balance to the statement about asking an art student to give an opinion of your work to get your ego stroked, I had a far different experience. I went to art school, and from foundation year (where you learn a smattering of everything: drawing, painting, sculpting, etc.) to senior year (when I focused on film and animation) I constantly had my work reviewed. Sometimes I got effusive praise, and sometimes I lef…

> To make this germane to hacking: I'm kind of baffled that peer code review isn't the cornerstone of this industry. No one works best in a bubble, and everyone has something to teach and to learn.

Richard P. Gabriel has been advocating an MFA program for hackers. I don't think it's gotten off the ground yet.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#206

Post by 1337p337 »

anonLSD wrote: post #196
mrleinad wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you find it odd that people regularly smoke cigarettes as well. Because the point is not whether a drug is made legal or not by your congress of the moment, but whether the benefits of it outweight the health danger.

People smoke cigarettes primarily because they are profoundly addictive, both chemically and psychologically. That confounds ordinary risk/reward analysis, and so I think it is a red herring here. Also, the "Hope you..." phrasing makes your comment come off as a bit sneering/condescending, just FYI.

When I am reading HN, it's almost always during time outside the office in the smoking area, or in front of my house, smoking a cigarette, like now.

I would certainly agree that nicotine is profoundly addictive, and the cigarette as a delivery system equally so. It reduces anxiety (especially useful to smooth the effects of caffeine), acts as an apetite suppressant (long nights hacking can be interrupted by a five-minute smoke break rather than a thirty-minute food break), and is a mild stimulant. One issue here, though, is that as you become addicted, most of the anxiety you calm with cigarettes is caused by withdrawal symptoms or even fear of withdrawal symptoms, like headaches, hand tremors, dizziness, blurred vision, all very unpleasant. The pavlovian response is pretty strong: inhaling cigarette smoke gets you the effects within seconds. In the case of withdrawal symptoms, you have this discomfort, and it is relieved almost instantly after you inhale. People with anxiety disorders or depression have a strong tendency to self-medicate with nicotine.

Psychologically, it's nice to have something to do with your hands while standing around outside waiting. Like time in the shower, sometimes I have my best ideas outside smoking, thinking about nothing in particular. And an excuse to get up from the computer and go out for a little while is great, too. There are social benefits as well, if you live in a neighborhood or work at a company where there are people coming and going, happy to converse outside.

So the addiction goes fairly deep, and is often not understood by non-smokers. The fact that you see, in almost any major metropolitan environment, homeless people smoking is a pretty good indicator. Personally, there are times when I have opted to smoke rather than eat or sleep, and it is confounding but there's a deep urge anyway, as if my body were telling me that I "needed" to smoke, in the same way that it tells me I need to eat or sleep.

I've made a number of attempts to quit, and have found the nicotine patches to be the most useful method. (I have a couple of boxes of them at home, waiting for Monday to roll around.)

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#208

Post by icandoitbetter »

blinkingled wrote: post #148
cal5k wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you eat food for enjoyment?

I am not sure what you are getting at. Why is your focus on giving up - mine is on not letting it matter. I am not claiming to have given up on food - giving up is not what I am trying to do - my focus is happiness with understanding and minimalism. Minimalism does not equate to starving yourself to death. It involves doing everything "needful" without attachment or false pretenses or expectations. Doing nothing extr…

> Why is your focus on giving up - mine is on not letting it matter.

That's some trivial reframing -- if you stopped eating food, it would start to matter.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#209

Post by kragen »

While I have great respect for many people whose lives have been changed for the better by LSD, I have never taken it. Many of the mind-expanding experiences they report are my daily experience.

To quote Salvador Dali:

I don't use drugs.

I am drugs.

Re: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug

#210

Post by tajddin »

anonLSD wrote: post #177

I offer some of the highlights of my personal experience with LSD, anonymously, due to the very unfortunate stigma. I'm very positive on its ability to unlock potential, trigger insights, expand perspective, and facilitate learning, even in spite of having experienced a few bad trips. Although the experience is deeply personal, I'll try to offer the most concrete accounts I can. First, of all the hundreds of little i…

"What's a color? What's a country? What's a "week"? What's a leader? What is solid? Which way is up? What's a job? Your brain starts trying to decompose every concept into basic principles, and you realize that for a lot of things in the human world, there are none."

While I've personally never tried LSD, my favorite is, e, which offers a similar, but different, opening of the mind. Since I've never tried LSD, I can only say that e opens one in an emotional way, one that allows you to empathize and understand the universe in a way that you otherwise wouldn't. It also invokes an odd existential dialog within oneself about how the world works and why we think the way we do.

I suppose I quote you because as a musician and software engineer, it is often the case that I ask myself why it is that certain things are the way they are. For example, anyone that's studies AI realizes that one of the harder concepts is that of _understanding_.

How do we make a machine understand when we ourselves don't understand the _why_ around us?

Drugs like e and LSD present an insight to us that allows us to realize that the answer is a lot more distant than just what we perceive.

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