7 ms·

Acid test: on drugs and science fiction (2017)

51 points by benbreen 8y ago

mirimir 8y ago
Campbell: > Marijuana ... is not an aphrodisiac ... No, but it does improve sex.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Depends for who. Personnaly, it makes me sleep, and sex with a sleeping guy is kinda limited.
  - stronglikedan 8y ago
    Indica makes you sleep. Sativa improves enjoyable experiences. Sativa by day - Indica by night.
    - kylek 8y ago
      "Indicas" tend to be more tactile. (I use quotes because indica/sativa doesn't mean anything. The subjective effects are really a matter of the ratios/amounts of cannabinoids and terpenoids and the manner of ingestion)
      - kylek 8y ago
        Can't edit but wanted to ask if my downvoters had anything to say? IMO calling something "indica" or "sativa" or "hybrid" is one-dimensional when trying to describe any of the (vast number of) possible subjective effects. (I'm suggesting that a little nuance goes a long ways) Maybe the downvotes were for something else - honestly curious!
        mirimir 8y ago
        Not a downvoter, but I was surprised to see "indica" and "sativa". I mean, I know that they're species. But most marijuana that people encounter these days is hardly recognizable in those terms. I only know a little about it. But it's my impression that there's been massive breeding, induction of polyploidy, etc, etc. But I do agree totally with this: > The subjective effects are really a matter of the ratios/amounts of cannabinoids and terpenoids and the manner of ingestion There's lots more to marijuana than THC and CBD. Way back in grad school, we had a preparative gas chromatograph (GC). So I created a fat glass U column, and packed it with silica gel plus some retardant specified in a thesis. I extracted some marijuana with acetone, filtered, and then rotovapped to get "hash oil". Then I ran that through the GC. Referring to the thesis, I identified the main THC, CBD, etc peaks. And so I captured fractions, using small glass U tubes in liquid nitrogen. Then a few of us sat around, vaping the various fractions, and comparing experience. It could have made a nice paper, but for the illegality, and the general unpublishablility of subjective experience.
        kylek 8y ago
        >> So I created a fat glass U column, and packed it with silica gel plus some retardant specified in a thesis. I extracted some marijuana with acetone, filtered, and then rotovapped to get "hash oil". Then I ran that through the GC. >> Referring to the thesis, I identified the main THC, CBD, etc peaks. And so I captured fractions, using small glass U tubes in liquid nitrogen. That's pretty fantastic, but I think I'll stick to rollin' j's :)
      - grawprog 8y ago
        I upvoted your comment. I'm not sure why you were downvoted. This is correct. Even different plants of the same strain will have different levels of these depending on growing conditions, drying, curing and other factors. Even two clones grown in different conditions can vary greatly in cannibinoid ratios. There was also an excellent study i read a while back on the effects of different terpenes on the kind of high you have and how they interact with thc and various other cannibinoids. This article summarizes the study pretty well: https://lift.co/magazine/terpenes-cannabis-strains https://lift.co/magazine/terpenes-cannabis-strains
        kylek 8y ago
        A bit off-topic but I thought this video was neat [0]. Cannabinoids produced by GMO yeast! (Your reference to the variance in ratios reminded me of this. An interesting answer to mass production and standardization) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUXtBuI-tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUXtBuI-tY
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Yeah, happens sometimes. Way back in the carefree days, we could spend days in bed. Smoking marijuana, eating, having sex, sleeping, having sex half asleep, reading to each other, maybe doing some cocaine, or even some shrooms or LSD, etc, etc, etc. And "we" sometimes meant a drop-in party.
- sigi45 8y ago
  Not for me. It takes longer. Yes i know the difference between I/S.
empath75 8y ago
> drugs pay off in visible ways only for people who have already put in the hard work of figuring out how to make and do interesting things. I agree with this. I’ve known a lot of people who have done a lot of psychedelics and most of them learned absolutely nothing from it if I’m being honest, and the few who had what I’d consider to be profound or interesting insights from it were deep thinkers anyway.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Intersting, but not unexpected. If you give people a masterpiece, be it music, a painting, a book, etc., uneducated people will not get nearly as much out of it as more educated people. If you give fantastic ski gears to most people, then won't ski better than before, but to a good skier, they will change a lot. It makes sense that you can use a tool to the maximum potential that you are capable of.
- ttonkytonk 8y ago
  I disagree with this type of thinking, as if some people with the same opportunities choose the less rewarding path as a consequence of laziness. I like the metaphor of a battle, where it's easier to apply lots of energy to the front when your flanks are secured. For many people they are surrounded by financial insecurity, dysfunctional social structures and even unsecure psychic structures.
  - 7Z7 8y ago
    I didn't read it as indicating laziness, I read it as those who make time to build creative structures with a straight mind may more easily make use of the psychedelic's influence than those who have not. ie. psychedelics don't make you creative, they inform your creativity
    - ttonkytonk 8y ago
      It seems to imply a moral failure though.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
n4r9 8y ago
Heinlein: > I know of no work of art, essay, story, discovery, or anything else of value created as a result of LSD. When the acid-droppers start outdistancing the squares in any field, I’ll sit up and take notice. Heinlein wrote some decent novels but I keep coming across pretty closed-minded, strong opinions in quotations of his. Many great musicians were known to have had LSD inspire their creations. The Beatles, Coltrane, the Beach Boys to name a few. Some of Huxley's work was influenced by it, and the biochemist Kary Mullis credits it with helping him develop the PCR method for DNA sequencing.
- perfmode 8y ago
  Not to mention Francis Crick
- arethuza 8y ago
  He also wrote some stuff which is a bit disturbing - I'd almost prefer to think he wrote some of it on LSD...
- dave_sullivan 8y ago
  Funny story about Huxley: on his death bed, he was given LSD by request. Went out tripping. JFK was assassinated the same day. Heinlein has struck me as an asshole over the years. It's like his defining personality trait. I find PKD much more likeable.
  - mr_overalls 8y ago
    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Dick was physically abusive with his third wife, Anne Williams Rubinstein; after one argument in 1963, he attempted to push her off a cliff in a car, then later claimed she was trying to kill him, and convinced a psychiatrist to commit her involuntarily. After filing for divorce in 1964, he moved to Oakland to live with a fan, Grania Davis. Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she was a passenger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Personal_life
    - 8y ago
Nursie 8y ago
On anoxia - > In just a minute or two, you’ll discover a vast increase in your mental abilities—a sureness of thought, a breadth of understanding, and a rapidity and sureness of reasoning you never achieved before…Of course your brilliant realizations and mighty discoveries somehow seem to misfire when you come down off that jag I believe this covers quite a lot of the amazing 'realisations' people have whilst on psychedelics like LSD, as well. And I'm not speaking from ignorance here, but as one who has tried around 10 different natural and synthetic psychedelics. They are beautiful, I'm not going to dispute that they can change the way we think of ourselves and the world around us. But... The utopianist ideas of "If everyone just tried this, there would be no war, we could get rid of government and all look after each other, and the world would be as one!" are wishful thinking. As illustrated by the vast majority of the communal living projects started in the late 60s and early 70s.
- vokep 8y ago
  The "if everyone just tried this there would be no war..." is absolutely wishful thinking yes, because it ignores that organization and process is required for large scale structures to function. And while we may not like each and every function of the large scale structures we have, we're much better withem than without. But as for realizations that are had, typically the value isn't in anything thought of while on LSD, but from the lasting change of perspective in months afterward. Realizations can happen on it, but they seem minimal. The closest thing would be that one point while on it I realized I was fully capable of holding two contradictory beliefs and simply consciously ignoring where they contradict. The thing is, a realization like that leads to greater realizations about how your own brain works.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  >The utopianist ideas of "If everyone just tried this, there would be no war, we could get rid of government and all look after each other, and the world would be as one!" are wishful thinking. I agree that people significantly overstate this point, but I think there is some kernel of truth to it. The government experimented with psychedelics, and decided to ban them. I think that's because they perceived them as a threat to the established order in some way (I know I could be wrong). But yeah, dropping acid won't make you into a wonderful human being overnight. Honestly I think MDMA would go further if the goal is making everyone love each other, but the neurotoxicity of it seems sketchy, and it doesn't make your thoughts and perceptions as... interesting. I think the main utility of acid to society will be in microdoses, though real trips have their place as well.
yboris 8y ago
A worthy read on the subject of psychedelics: How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan: https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=change+mind&qid=1547744331&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transc...
lostgame 8y ago
LSD and Ketamine were incredibly healing experiences for me that seriously broke through a lot of deep-seated trauma and helped me deal with PTSD that was debilitating my life beforehand. They’ve also been incredibly great experiences for benefiting my poetry and musical compositions. I believe they are great tools that require education to use. It’s a shame that education is more or less forbidden knowledge.
xkcd-sucks 8y ago
It's a little surprising Dune isn't mentioned in the article, seeing as the spice is basically a proxy for LSD
- beat 8y ago
  Frank Herbert explored drugs an a SF context in several novels, as well as Dune.
ken 8y ago
> Campbell believed that the real problem with marijuana is that a teenager who learns to doubt what adults say on the subject is likely to become equally skeptical when it comes to cocaine, heroin, and LSD There's some merit to this, but by the time they were teaching us about drugs, teachers had already lied to us about countless other topics. I wish they hadn't lied about the severity of marijuana, but that alone would have hardly changed my skepticism regarding everything else.

51 points by benbreen 8y ago

mirimir 8y ago

Campbell: > Marijuana ... is not an aphrodisiac ... No, but it does improve sex.

sametmax 8y ago
Depends for who. Personnaly, it makes me sleep, and sex with a sleeping guy is kinda limited.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  Indica makes you sleep. Sativa improves enjoyable experiences. Sativa by day - Indica by night.
  - kylek 8y ago
    "Indicas" tend to be more tactile. (I use quotes because indica/sativa doesn't mean anything. The subjective effects are really a matter of the ratios/amounts of cannabinoids and terpenoids and the manner of ingestion)
    - kylek 8y ago
      Can't edit but wanted to ask if my downvoters had anything to say? IMO calling something "indica" or "sativa" or "hybrid" is one-dimensional when trying to describe any of the (vast number of) possible subjective effects. (I'm suggesting that a little nuance goes a long ways) Maybe the downvotes were for something else - honestly curious!
      - mirimir 8y ago
        Not a downvoter, but I was surprised to see "indica" and "sativa". I mean, I know that they're species. But most marijuana that people encounter these days is hardly recognizable in those terms. I only know a little about it. But it's my impression that there's been massive breeding, induction of polyploidy, etc, etc. But I do agree totally with this: > The subjective effects are really a matter of the ratios/amounts of cannabinoids and terpenoids and the manner of ingestion There's lots more to marijuana than THC and CBD. Way back in grad school, we had a preparative gas chromatograph (GC). So I created a fat glass U column, and packed it with silica gel plus some retardant specified in a thesis. I extracted some marijuana with acetone, filtered, and then rotovapped to get "hash oil". Then I ran that through the GC. Referring to the thesis, I identified the main THC, CBD, etc peaks. And so I captured fractions, using small glass U tubes in liquid nitrogen. Then a few of us sat around, vaping the various fractions, and comparing experience. It could have made a nice paper, but for the illegality, and the general unpublishablility of subjective experience.
        kylek 8y ago
        >> So I created a fat glass U column, and packed it with silica gel plus some retardant specified in a thesis. I extracted some marijuana with acetone, filtered, and then rotovapped to get "hash oil". Then I ran that through the GC. >> Referring to the thesis, I identified the main THC, CBD, etc peaks. And so I captured fractions, using small glass U tubes in liquid nitrogen. That's pretty fantastic, but I think I'll stick to rollin' j's :)
    - grawprog 8y ago
      I upvoted your comment. I'm not sure why you were downvoted. This is correct. Even different plants of the same strain will have different levels of these depending on growing conditions, drying, curing and other factors. Even two clones grown in different conditions can vary greatly in cannibinoid ratios. There was also an excellent study i read a while back on the effects of different terpenes on the kind of high you have and how they interact with thc and various other cannibinoids. This article summarizes the study pretty well: https://lift.co/magazine/terpenes-cannabis-strains https://lift.co/magazine/terpenes-cannabis-strains
      - kylek 8y ago
        A bit off-topic but I thought this video was neat [0]. Cannabinoids produced by GMO yeast! (Your reference to the variance in ratios reminded me of this. An interesting answer to mass production and standardization) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUXtBuI-tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUXtBuI-tY
- mirimir 8y ago
  Yeah, happens sometimes. Way back in the carefree days, we could spend days in bed. Smoking marijuana, eating, having sex, sleeping, having sex half asleep, reading to each other, maybe doing some cocaine, or even some shrooms or LSD, etc, etc, etc. And "we" sometimes meant a drop-in party.
sigi45 8y ago
Not for me. It takes longer. Yes i know the difference between I/S.

empath75 8y ago

> drugs pay off in visible ways only for people who have already put in the hard work of figuring out how to make and do interesting things. I agree with this. I’ve known a lot of people who have done a lot of psychedelics and most of them learned absolutely nothing from it if I’m being honest, and the few who had what I’d consider to be profound or interesting insights from it were deep thinkers anyway.

sametmax 8y ago
Intersting, but not unexpected. If you give people a masterpiece, be it music, a painting, a book, etc., uneducated people will not get nearly as much out of it as more educated people. If you give fantastic ski gears to most people, then won't ski better than before, but to a good skier, they will change a lot. It makes sense that you can use a tool to the maximum potential that you are capable of.
ttonkytonk 8y ago
I disagree with this type of thinking, as if some people with the same opportunities choose the less rewarding path as a consequence of laziness. I like the metaphor of a battle, where it's easier to apply lots of energy to the front when your flanks are secured. For many people they are surrounded by financial insecurity, dysfunctional social structures and even unsecure psychic structures.
- 7Z7 8y ago
  I didn't read it as indicating laziness, I read it as those who make time to build creative structures with a straight mind may more easily make use of the psychedelic's influence than those who have not. ie. psychedelics don't make you creative, they inform your creativity
  - ttonkytonk 8y ago
    It seems to imply a moral failure though.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

n4r9 8y ago

Heinlein: > I know of no work of art, essay, story, discovery, or anything else of value created as a result of LSD. When the acid-droppers start outdistancing the squares in any field, I’ll sit up and take notice. Heinlein wrote some decent novels but I keep coming across pretty closed-minded, strong opinions in quotations of his. Many great musicians were known to have had LSD inspire their creations. The Beatles, Coltrane, the Beach Boys to name a few. Some of Huxley's work was influenced by it, and the biochemist Kary Mullis credits it with helping him develop the PCR method for DNA sequencing.

perfmode 8y ago
Not to mention Francis Crick
arethuza 8y ago
He also wrote some stuff which is a bit disturbing - I'd almost prefer to think he wrote some of it on LSD...
dave_sullivan 8y ago
Funny story about Huxley: on his death bed, he was given LSD by request. Went out tripping. JFK was assassinated the same day. Heinlein has struck me as an asshole over the years. It's like his defining personality trait. I find PKD much more likeable.
- mr_overalls 8y ago
  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Dick was physically abusive with his third wife, Anne Williams Rubinstein; after one argument in 1963, he attempted to push her off a cliff in a car, then later claimed she was trying to kill him, and convinced a psychiatrist to commit her involuntarily. After filing for divorce in 1964, he moved to Oakland to live with a fan, Grania Davis. Shortly after, he attempted suicide by driving off the road while she was a passenger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#Personal_life
  - 8y ago

Nursie 8y ago

On anoxia - > In just a minute or two, you’ll discover a vast increase in your mental abilities—a sureness of thought, a breadth of understanding, and a rapidity and sureness of reasoning you never achieved before…Of course your brilliant realizations and mighty discoveries somehow seem to misfire when you come down off that jag I believe this covers quite a lot of the amazing 'realisations' people have whilst on psychedelics like LSD, as well. And I'm not speaking from ignorance here, but as one who has tried around 10 different natural and synthetic psychedelics. They are beautiful, I'm not going to dispute that they can change the way we think of ourselves and the world around us. But... The utopianist ideas of "If everyone just tried this, there would be no war, we could get rid of government and all look after each other, and the world would be as one!" are wishful thinking. As illustrated by the vast majority of the communal living projects started in the late 60s and early 70s.

vokep 8y ago
The "if everyone just tried this there would be no war..." is absolutely wishful thinking yes, because it ignores that organization and process is required for large scale structures to function. And while we may not like each and every function of the large scale structures we have, we're much better withem than without. But as for realizations that are had, typically the value isn't in anything thought of while on LSD, but from the lasting change of perspective in months afterward. Realizations can happen on it, but they seem minimal. The closest thing would be that one point while on it I realized I was fully capable of holding two contradictory beliefs and simply consciously ignoring where they contradict. The thing is, a realization like that leads to greater realizations about how your own brain works.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
blotter_paper 8y ago
>The utopianist ideas of "If everyone just tried this, there would be no war, we could get rid of government and all look after each other, and the world would be as one!" are wishful thinking. I agree that people significantly overstate this point, but I think there is some kernel of truth to it. The government experimented with psychedelics, and decided to ban them. I think that's because they perceived them as a threat to the established order in some way (I know I could be wrong). But yeah, dropping acid won't make you into a wonderful human being overnight. Honestly I think MDMA would go further if the goal is making everyone love each other, but the neurotoxicity of it seems sketchy, and it doesn't make your thoughts and perceptions as... interesting. I think the main utility of acid to society will be in microdoses, though real trips have their place as well.

yboris 8y ago

A worthy read on the subject of psychedelics: How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan: https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=change+mind&qid=1547744331&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transc...

lostgame 8y ago

LSD and Ketamine were incredibly healing experiences for me that seriously broke through a lot of deep-seated trauma and helped me deal with PTSD that was debilitating my life beforehand. They’ve also been incredibly great experiences for benefiting my poetry and musical compositions. I believe they are great tools that require education to use. It’s a shame that education is more or less forbidden knowledge.

xkcd-sucks 8y ago

It's a little surprising Dune isn't mentioned in the article, seeing as the spice is basically a proxy for LSD

beat 8y ago
Frank Herbert explored drugs an a SF context in several novels, as well as Dune.

ken 8y ago

> Campbell believed that the real problem with marijuana is that a teenager who learns to doubt what adults say on the subject is likely to become equally skeptical when it comes to cocaine, heroin, and LSD There's some merit to this, but by the time they were teaching us about drugs, teachers had already lied to us about countless other topics. I wish they hadn't lied about the severity of marijuana, but that alone would have hardly changed my skepticism regarding everything else.