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YouTube engineer in critical condition after rampage during bad LSD trip
- ltr_ 7y agoIt could be anything (nMBome - 2C-x - mixed with amphetamines), it is very rare to find pure LSD on the streets.
- swampthinker 7y agoAccording to the article, it seems like he doubled down on a bad trip - probably the worst thing you could do while on LSD.
- friendly_chap 7y agoNot necessarily. Andrew Feldmar, a prominent psychologist I held in high regard advises to do exactly that: if you feel bad already, might as well take more.
- hi5eyes 7y agothats fucking stupid
- friendly_chap 7y agoWell, I do trust the experience of psychologists, or at least the ones familiar with LSD. I personally know some who have assisted hundreds/thousands of people during their trip.
- merpnderp 7y agoToo much alcohol, so take more? Too much ibuprofen, so take more? If you’re poisoned by something, you don’t take more.
- friendly_chap 7y agoIt's not a poisoning. It's a mental state.
- milquetoastaf 7y agoNo. Do not ever do this. If you are having a bad LSD trip, the best medical course of action is to take a benzo like xanax. It will stop the trip almost immediately. Never trip with inexperienced people without one or two handy.
- grawprog 7y agoI try to keep my comments civil on here, but that's horrible fucking advice. The best thing you can do is try and relax and calm down, taking more of a drug you're having a bad experience with is the opposite of what anyone should do ever.
- angel_j 7y agoThere is wisdom in it. Some drugs have a kind of scuzzy zone somewhere between a mild dose and next level dose. If you're taking a drug that perforce requires you to "let go", it may help take enough that you lose agency to resist.
- friendly_chap 7y agoYeah, unfortunately the people in this thread do not have experience with this stuff and just reply based on their gut feeling. That middle zone you describe where you are stuck between the two worlds are probably the worst.
- grawprog 7y agoActually I have experience with lsd, mushrooms and some other hallucinogens. I've gotten really high on them. I've talked about it in my comments here before. I still believe it's bad advice especially for inexperienced users.
- friendly_chap 7y agoFair enough, I do agree it's a dangerous game, I just don't agree that it's a completely stupid point.
- mnm1 7y agoI don't know who Andrew Feldmar is, but he is one incredibly stupid psychologist, likely one of the dumbest in the world if not the dumbest if what you say is true.
- friendly_chap 7y agoAnd what is your reasoning behind that? People who take psychedelics are very familiar with the concept of not breaking through and being stuck in a limbo state between where your ego still has a chance to fight. Also please note this we are talking about a world renowned expert in LSD psychotherapy, who has 5 decades of experience in the matter. How many trips did you guide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Feldm%C3%A1r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Feldm%C3%A1r
- mnm1 7y agoYeah, worked wonders in this case. Amazingly great outcome. Good thing he followed Feldman's instructions. Now he's guaranteed a trip to jail or maybe even the cemetery. Yeah Feldman is a genius, you're right. I'm sure the people this guy put in the hospital would agree too. Really he probably still didn't take enough. Another ten to a hundred doses would probably have been even better.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoWe'll never know if the drug was actually LSD. Reminds me of all the "LSD" and "MDMA" in Austin TX was likely just shit like 25I and MDPV when I lived there and had a bunch of tripsafe test kits. There was a time where I would go to a rave and wonder if there was a single person actually rolling.
- jefft255 7y agoAt this point they’ll get blood samples, I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took.
- jMyles 7y ago> At this point they’ll get blood samples, I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took. ...what? This seems like a very strange assertion to me. LSD is obviously difficult to test for and is not typically part of a routine test at all. But even if it is in this case, unless things have rapidly progressed in the past few years, I don't think it's possible to differentiate between different tryptamines (or even different indoles) in the blood, and even detecting them at all is difficult or impossible after 12 hours or so. Are you saying that it's now possible, from a blood test, to make this differentiation? Do you have a source for this claim? Unless another dose of the material is provided, I doubt that we'll know what this person ingested.
- happytoexplain 7y agoI don't think your use of the qualifier "obviously" is quite called for. I also don't think it's reasonable to assume the statement was made by a professional, as you seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong?). The majority of people probably assume blood tests can detect most popularly known drugs when the dosage is high and the sample is collected within a reasonably short time.
- jMyles 7y agoNo, not a professional in this field - or even close - but with a smidgen of formal education (BA minor in physiological psych). I guess I thought it was "obvious" in the sense that many people routinely face employment-related drug screenings which don't test for these compounds. But yeah, reading my comment again, I think you're right that "obviously" is probably overstating things. I do think that it's probably sadly optimistic to say "I’m pretty sure that we’ll know exactly what he took", unless things have changed since I last studied this material. I hope that there is a conclusion on which psychoactive compound(s) this person ingested; I apologize for my tone.
- earthstabber 7y agoBesides actual issues with mental health history, is there any way to know if someone will react this way to LSD? Set and setting may not be enough in these cases, it seems?
- staticautomatic 7y agoAlways carry benzos in case of bad trip.
- hi5eyes 7y agobenzos and a trip sitter would've avoided some of this at least could've calmed him down
- staticautomatic 7y agoIdk what the sitter situation was but it sounds like this got out of hand pretty fast. If they couldn't calm him I imagine the best they could do is pin him down and tie him up.
- chriscappuccio 7y agoMaybe fast acting elephant tranquilizer.
- lanrh1836 7y agoAssuming this was pure LSD, 4 full doses is way too much. It leads me wonder if he knew what we was getting into ahead of time or if he was peer pressured and did not have much experience. The trial will be interesting here. I think his best defense is that he had no clue what a safe dose was and had 0 control over his own actions while he did what he did.
- ne9xt 7y agoOne would likely want to be unafraid of letting go. After a heroic dose like that, it's possible he had some things on his mind and the chemical inescapably brought these things to the forefront of his attention. More info here: https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD.shtml https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD.shtml
- profmonocle 7y agoHis employment at YouTube doesn't seem relevant to the story. Feels very clickbaity to put that in the headline (unless they're implying working at YouTube is somehow connected to the attack, which I don't get from the article.)
- hellofunk 7y agoIt’s not even in the headline, it was just added for the hacker news link!
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoThe bio blurb from the article states "On his LinkedIn page, Koffi states that he is a Stanford-educated software engineer at YouTube and previously worked at Microsoft." There are a lot of developers who read HN; perhaps somebody who will happen across this article knows him?
- StreamBright 7y agoWhat do you expect from Buzzfeed?
- happytoexplain 7y agoSurprisingly competent writing, actually.
- StreamBright 7y agoTotally: https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/ https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-w... https://www.buzzsprout.com/164767/1046783 https://www.buzzsprout.com/164767/1046783
- finnthehuman 7y agoshrug This is standard practice for "the news." You're probably keying into it this time because of goodwill towards Google and/or a "one of us" connection to the subject of unflattering news.
- hi5eyes 7y agothis is why (people with mental issues should deffo not touch drugs in general, much less strong psychedelics) #1 test ur shhit #2 trip sitter (if shit goes down they can reel it in) #3 low doses
- bigmattystyles 7y agoIs it weird that youtube is expected to comment per the article's author?
- buboard 7y agoI wonder if Youtube will now ban LSD-related videos
- DanieI 7y agoIf YouTube is willing to please their advertisers or decrease liability by banning content on hacking which could help people within the computer industry identify and prevent cyber attacks, then I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube banned everything related to drug harm reduction and educational content about how they work inside the human body for similar reasons.
- bdcravens 7y agoHe won't be a YouTube engineer in 48 hours, I'm sure. If he survives, he's going to end up with at least 20 years in the California prison system. Every hour he spent studying at Stanford, every tough coding interview he endured at Microsoft and YouTube, and every other sacrifice he made, are now likely irreparably flushed down the toilet. Yet "we" (ie the HN and related crowd who engage in hero worship) love to wax poetic about Steve Jobs's LSD quote.
- kodz4 7y ago32 year old on top of it. With the Andy Rubin news yday, it feels like the US is just flushing itself down the toilet everyday that goes by.
- leoh 7y agoAgreed that there's a lot of messed up stuff in the world, but this is overgeneralization/availability bias.
- bigmattystyles 7y agoIn an ideal world, he would have his day in court first. In the real world, I suspect you're right.
- sargun 7y agoWhat is the point you're trying to make? A moral judgement?
- darkpuma 7y agoSteve Jobs would be less popular if he tried to kill people with a truck.
- BeatLeJuce 7y agoI don't see how the fact that he's a youtube engineer is relevant at all to this lsd-trip-gone-(very)-bad story
- jMyles 7y agoIf the details of this story are true - and sadly, in cases in the USA where police shoot someone, it's very reasonable to doubt any claims made by "authorities" unless there is ironclad evidence - then I think that there is zero chance that this drug was in fact LSD. LSD can certainly cause confusion and terror, but it does not generally cause the kind of delirium and rage described by police here. Also, the reporting in this particular article is pathetic: > The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes LSD as "one of the most powerful mind-altering chemicals." Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia. NIDA is basically completely discredited at this point on the effects of this class of drugs, having spent the past four decades denying their medical benefits. Furthermore, the unsourced assertion "Some people who use the drug can experience psychosis or paranoia", obviously relying on the Osmond-era "psychotomimetic" designation, appears to have been a side-effect of LSD being administered in the sterile conditions of a mental institution in the 1950s and early 1960s and not typical of the effects outside that setting. It is much more likely that this person unwittingly ingested a different compound - and again, that's assuming that these details are even accurate in the first place and not a CYA story by a person trying to justify discharging a firearm at another person.
- chriscappuccio 7y agoOK, if it wasn't lsd, what was it? His friends who were also taking it were involved and talked to the police.
- almost_usual 7y agoSo a YouTube engineer with a degree from Stanford couldn’t accurately identify LSD or dose it correctly. That gives me hope for everyone else...
- jMyles 7y agoI'm not sure that this person's background, education, or employer is indicative of the degree of reasonable hope. LSD (along with all other drugs) needs to be made legal and regular so that it becomes easy to obtain a quality-controlled dose.
- sadness2 7y agoTabloid-style headline. Was this in private? It should stay that way (it's nobody's business except those directly affected). Was it public? Media shouldn't be broadcasting his place of work. Will not read.
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoall I see is a job opening
- sn_master 7y agoWhy are all the articles saying he's a YouTube engineer ? How is that relevant ?
- futureastronaut 7y agoHe's the subject of the story, and occupation/employer are a major part of our identities. This is not "YouTube user goes on drug-fueld rampage," which would be superfluous.
- throwaway66666 7y agoI hope everyone in the story recovers. I have tried LSD a few times, and the thing that surprises me the most, is how bad his friends in the story are. First of all, the rule is, when you get a new batch. 1 person tries a small dose to judge the potency and effects. You never give your friends drugs you have not sampled them first. You can poison yourself, but you may not poison others. Now, assuming this was not LSD they would have caught it early. But assuming that it is... With inexperienced people you need a trip sitter. Someone who is sober (or is much more experienced) and lays out a plan for the trip. Things that you will watch, music to listen to, when it is time to snack. etc. A good trip sitter can change a bad trip to a good trip very easily. And the preparation for this starts even before taking the drug, by telling you some of the bad things you might experience (thought loops, very strong deja-vu, thinking you are trapped in that moment for eternity) and how to deal with the illusion of each one. Also since LSD lasts to max 12 hours, it is good to amp the dosage slowly and not all at once. Secondly you need to feel comfortable. If you are in an unfamiliar house, and there is let's say a basement that creeps you out while sober. Oh boy... you 're going to have such a bad time thinking about that basement and all the spooky stuff in it when tripping! You must be comfortable and relaxed. Noone told him that? Noone was there to see he was acting strange? They were cool with him downing 4 doses? Bad trips can turn good very easily. And feel-good moments quickly take a short dark turn when something unexpected happens (like a random ring of the doorbell - no one was expecting). Yes something that small can cause terror. You need somebody to guide you and take your mind of the bad stuff. I think the best explanation I can give is... remember when you were a kid and you were eating your favorite candy. Do you remember how much better it tasted back then than it does today? Also, imagine that as a kid you watched something that really scared you, but today you 'd laugh at non-scary it actually is. That's pretty much how your perception changes + color hallucinations.
- almost_usual 7y agoThe psychedelic subject on HN is so biased. Submit a post about how a small LSD dose can help treat schizophrenia and it gets hundreds of points. Submit a post about how someone goes on a violent rampage after dosing LSD irresponsibly and it gets flagged then downvoted. Considering his employer and education (a lot of people are arguing it’s relevance) he could have easily been a HN community member. It’s like readers only focus on the positives of psychedelics and never want to discuss both sides.