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Old Square Discovers Psychedelic Valley

66 points by KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

wideasleep1 6y ago
Just now discovered psychedlics, yet founded Be Inc. Interesting.
paypalcust83 6y ago
On Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't 6 months ago. https://youtu.be/RHRgY8fZNv4 https://youtu.be/RHRgY8fZNv4 The often dyed-black bark, overwatering, and climate of mixed-use commercial/residential developments in the Bay Area provides the perfect habitat for psilocybin mushrooms. Happy accidents of potential supply and demand, minus DEA licenses.
asguy 6y ago
Nobody is designing chips anymore. We're microdosing LSD and getting excited about our opinionated web frameworks. The Bay-Area-innovation knows no bounds. See y'all at Burning Man.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  Keep 6' or an Osman apart please. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/27/reg_standards_soviet_social_distancing_measure/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/27/reg_standards_sovie...
- KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
  But people are designing chips still. I'm sure the COVID crisis will sweep away the opinionated web frameworks and pave the way for the new wave of innovation, as many crises have done before.
crawfordcomeaux 6y ago
Will someone please bring this person some mushrooms?
- wideasleep1 6y ago
  Or, Jean-Louis could simply watch his countryman's 1973 Epic: Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwrip4d1JFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwrip4d1JFc
gdubs 6y ago
I think there’s some funny context here given his ... fraught relationship with Steve Jobs, who was — famously — a fan of LSD.
faanghacker 6y ago
I keep reading/hearing about the relationship between psychedelics and Silicon Valley, but I have yet to meet that many people in real life who work in the SV software industry and use psychedelics. I'm a SWE who has spent over a decade at various large companies in SV. I know one fellow SWE who has used it at Burning Man. Several other SWEs gave me a neutral or negative reaction when I mentioned using psychedelics. If there is a side of Silicon Valley that involves using psychedelics to enhance your work, it's either a lot smaller than the media makes it out to be, or I'm in the wrong place.
- sk5t 6y ago
  Perhaps it's not something folks feel comfortable discussing--were these neutral or negative reactions from acquaintances and coworkers, or from close friends?
  - faanghacker 6y ago
    I obviously didn't flat out ask others if they had tried it. I either mentioned that I had tried it or played dumb and asked if they knew anything about e.g. microdosing, as if I had only heard of it. Anecdotally... 1) Friend from college working in machine learning space who just moved back to SV from Asia, saying that the tech culture in Asia suffered from a lack of creativity. In the same conversation I brought up having used psilocybin and he freaked out, thinking it was going to damage my brain. 2) Another friend from college who's a hardware engineer. who found it strange that I didn't want to drink whiskey with him but regularly use psilocybin. He also warned me about brain damage. 3) Friend from work whom I knew socially. After he quit working, I chatted with him and suggested that if he wanted to try psychedelics now would be a good time, before he decides whether to go back to working. He seemed to be surprised, and just made a comment about Steve Jobs to cover up the awkwardness. 4) Another coworker I worked closely with and had a good opinion of me because of the work that I had done, who had gone to another company. I asked him if he knew anything about microdosing while having lunch and he said not to try that stuff because it would mess up my head. 5) The Burning Man guy was someone I'd worked with before. He told me about his recent BM psychedelic experience after I told him about having used ayahuasca recently. Point is, my experience of sampling people I know in SV both socially and professionally hasn't yielded anything close to "yeah I have used psychedelics to help my work" even when I didn't ask them straight up if they had used it, and instead volunteered my own experience first. I worked in large companies in South Bay, not SF-based startups. That probably had something to do with it. Still, all the press about SV and psychedelics gets tiring when it seems not to take into account the likely uneven distribution between South Bay vs SF and large companies vs startups.
vidarh 6y ago
In this context "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" by John Markoff is pretty much a compulsory read for it's story of how the history of the valley is rife with experimentation with psychedelics.

66 points by KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

Just now discovered psychedlics, yet founded Be Inc. Interesting.

On Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't 6 months ago. https://youtu.be/RHRgY8fZNv4 https://youtu.be/RHRgY8fZNv4 The often dyed-black bark, overwatering, and climate of mixed-use commercial/residential developments in the Bay Area provides the perfect habitat for psilocybin mushrooms. Happy accidents of potential supply and demand, minus DEA licenses.

asguy 6y ago

Nobody is designing chips anymore. We're microdosing LSD and getting excited about our opinionated web frameworks. The Bay-Area-innovation knows no bounds. See y'all at Burning Man.

gerdesj 6y ago
Keep 6' or an Osman apart please. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/27/reg_standards_soviet_social_distancing_measure/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/27/reg_standards_sovie...
KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
But people are designing chips still. I'm sure the COVID crisis will sweep away the opinionated web frameworks and pave the way for the new wave of innovation, as many crises have done before.

crawfordcomeaux 6y ago

Will someone please bring this person some mushrooms?

wideasleep1 6y ago
Or, Jean-Louis could simply watch his countryman's 1973 Epic: Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwrip4d1JFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwrip4d1JFc

gdubs 6y ago

I think there’s some funny context here given his ... fraught relationship with Steve Jobs, who was — famously — a fan of LSD.

faanghacker 6y ago

I keep reading/hearing about the relationship between psychedelics and Silicon Valley, but I have yet to meet that many people in real life who work in the SV software industry and use psychedelics. I'm a SWE who has spent over a decade at various large companies in SV. I know one fellow SWE who has used it at Burning Man. Several other SWEs gave me a neutral or negative reaction when I mentioned using psychedelics. If there is a side of Silicon Valley that involves using psychedelics to enhance your work, it's either a lot smaller than the media makes it out to be, or I'm in the wrong place.

sk5t 6y ago
Perhaps it's not something folks feel comfortable discussing--were these neutral or negative reactions from acquaintances and coworkers, or from close friends?
- faanghacker 6y ago
  I obviously didn't flat out ask others if they had tried it. I either mentioned that I had tried it or played dumb and asked if they knew anything about e.g. microdosing, as if I had only heard of it. Anecdotally... 1) Friend from college working in machine learning space who just moved back to SV from Asia, saying that the tech culture in Asia suffered from a lack of creativity. In the same conversation I brought up having used psilocybin and he freaked out, thinking it was going to damage my brain. 2) Another friend from college who's a hardware engineer. who found it strange that I didn't want to drink whiskey with him but regularly use psilocybin. He also warned me about brain damage. 3) Friend from work whom I knew socially. After he quit working, I chatted with him and suggested that if he wanted to try psychedelics now would be a good time, before he decides whether to go back to working. He seemed to be surprised, and just made a comment about Steve Jobs to cover up the awkwardness. 4) Another coworker I worked closely with and had a good opinion of me because of the work that I had done, who had gone to another company. I asked him if he knew anything about microdosing while having lunch and he said not to try that stuff because it would mess up my head. 5) The Burning Man guy was someone I'd worked with before. He told me about his recent BM psychedelic experience after I told him about having used ayahuasca recently. Point is, my experience of sampling people I know in SV both socially and professionally hasn't yielded anything close to "yeah I have used psychedelics to help my work" even when I didn't ask them straight up if they had used it, and instead volunteered my own experience first. I worked in large companies in South Bay, not SF-based startups. That probably had something to do with it. Still, all the press about SV and psychedelics gets tiring when it seems not to take into account the likely uneven distribution between South Bay vs SF and large companies vs startups.

vidarh 6y ago

In this context "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" by John Markoff is pretty much a compulsory read for it's story of how the history of the valley is rife with experimentation with psychedelics.