LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006) • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by droopyEyelids » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

b6 wrote: post #27

xefer wrote: 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 help…

I'll take a step back even from your more modest assessment, and say that well-rounded people are better at programming (among other things) and an LSD experience can add a bit of roundedness to someone who already pushes their comfort zone-- and thats the real extent of LSD's benefit. Just another way to step outside yourself, with all the limited benefit and risk that entails.

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

#72

Post by samstave » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:19 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #70

middle334 wrote: post #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…

In what form was it? If it was a pill or liquid, it could have been cut.

A pill? I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

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

#73

Post by droopyEyelids » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:19 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #28

For those who don't know: Albert Hofmann has passed away since this article was written. He lived to the ripe old age of 102. RIP.

Another brilliant mind tragically cut down in the prime of his life by the scourge of illegal drugs :(

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

#74

Post by anonbanker » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #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 t…

This bit of fear, uncertainty, and doubt was brought to you by the Institute For Armchair Psychonauts Who Never Use Drugs.

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

#75

Post by samstave » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

Ollinson wrote: post #44

Shamanmuni wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read "What the Dormouse Said" by John Markoff you could reach the conclusion that a fellowship of LSD-fueled Übermenschen existed during the 60's and 70's and we had the personal computer revolution as a result. And no, I'm not talking just about Steve Jobs and Apple, there were many people involved with the nascent computer industry who turned on, tuned in and dropped out at that time.

Unless you can link other eras of technological advance to LSD use this seems like a poor argument.

One of the very early Cisco employees stated they made breakthroughs in developing routing tech specificAlly due to lsd.

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

#76

Post by BashiBazouk » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #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 t…

From my experience, I would liken LSD to peanuts. The vast majority of people out there can have a handful of peanuts with no problems. They may like the flavor or not but it won't cause long term harm. A small percentage are allergic and will have a reaction to peanuts ranging from mild sickness to death. LSD is similar, a small percentage of people will have problems mentally with LSD. It might last just a little while, it might cause (or trigger) life long problems. If you are unsure, take a tiny dose, maybe a 1/4 hit and see what happens. Or better yet, take a tiny dose of psilocybin mushrooms as they are the easiest to come down quickly from. Just eat a meal and you will be mostly down in about 45 minutes.

The other thing I discovered was once the paranoia starts to invade every trip consistently, you have learned all there is to learn and it's time to move on. I was annoyed with the paranoia and tried to work through it, though I was somewhat successful, LSD was just not that much fun anymore...

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

#77

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:35 PM UTC

acd wrote: post #38

So we have Lsd, amphetamine, mescaline, ritalin, provigil as mind drugs. Anyone tried Ritalin or provigil long term? The army uses amphetamine & provigil during long term flying missing during critical operations. So what is illegal for ordinary citizens is legal for the state. Side not Steve Jobs tried a lot of drugs in India probably a door opener for his mind as have a lot of brilliant rock artists danger being no…

Stimulants can essentially directly increase your intelligence for a time. You think faster, answers can just pop into your head faster, you can code faster. Laser focus, a sense of unlimited capability, too. A more realistic version of the movie "Limitless".

They don't seem to help with creativity, and can do the opposite. It's easy to get concentrated on the wrong thing. I knew a PHP dev on pro vigil long term, and when he'd take an extra dose of stims, you could tell. A flurry of good idea emails in the morning, then disappeared into his office all day.

But... One time, he spent all day trying to optimize the platform for TLB misses. From PHP code, that made a MySQL call every ten lines. Without the hyper focus and drive of stims, no way anyone would waste a day chasing down such crazy thing. (What annoyed me even more was that this useless but "hard" work received a lot of respect from people that understood less...)

So simulants are best taken when one has a clear idea of what to work on and can get into that work right away. In many cases, I think they're a win, and for thought focused work, like students, mathematicians, programmers, simulants should be more widely available legally. Why should we not want most of the population to have performance enhancing medication? As you note, the state is well aware of the effectiveness.

Also note that stimulants can cause psychosis over time, so there is some risk in having everyone use them all the time. But a measured use, like an afterburner, seems like a good thing to have available.

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

#78

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #72

woah wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what form was it? If it was a pill or liquid, it could have been cut.

A pill? I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

Some of the largest manufacturers of LSD made it in pills.

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

#79

Post by orasis » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:42 PM UTC

BashiBazouk wrote: post #76

olefoo wrote: post #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 t…

From my experience, I would liken LSD to peanuts. The vast majority of people out there can have a handful of peanuts with no problems. They may like the flavor or not but it won't cause long term harm. A small percentage are allergic and will have a reaction to peanuts ranging from mild sickness to death. LSD is similar, a small percentage of people will have problems mentally with LSD. It might last just a little w…

Just eat a meal? I think thats an over-optimistic suggestion?

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

#80

Post by orasis » Sat, Jan 24, 2015, 6:45 PM UTC

pierrec wrote: post #57

ohhmaagawd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? What is the law?

Article L.3421-4 of the "Code de la Santé Publique" (law concerning public health) forbids incitation/encouragement of the usage or traffic of classified narcotics, even if it does not lead to anyone actually using them. The sentence is heaviest if it's done near schools. Isn't there something vaguely equivalent in US law? The interesting part is that the act of presenting classified narcotics under a favorable light…

"Isn't there something vaguely equivalent in US law?"

Nope. The closest would probably be plans to make nuclear bombs. Oh, and the stupid thing about crypto. If I was bored enough right now I'd paste some long crypto key, but it would just make this thread look shitty.