6 ms·

The Brave New World of Chemical Romance

ackbar03 6y ago
Jesus christ this is so dystopian. I've always thought of love and fear as the main things that make humans human
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Many animals have a hypothalamus. Love[1] is more complicated but in my experience well within the behavioural range of many mammals, and potentially some birds. If we count maternal love, we'd get just about all K-strategists. [1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0908/7624/products/Webp.net-resizeimage-2020-05-21T125913.087_grande.jpg?v=1590029983 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0908/7624/products/Webp.ne...
  - jusujusu 6y ago
    Love, dear, is strictly for the birds
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  Love and fear are the least human I'd wager. They are mammalian in the case of love and even lower in the case of fear. It's rational thought that sets us apart, the rest is shared machinery. Some animals have _more_ emotional machinery than we do. (Orcas)
- cleansingfire 6y ago
  Emotions are in the most primitive parts of the brain, so I'm afraid this is exactly backwards. I'd suggest that our privilege as humans is to take our intellectual ability and use it to enrich our emotional lives. Cultivating empathy, expanding our sense of family, retraining cruel impulses and such. Loving well, so that love becomes more than lust and comfort. Take comfort that animals live rich emotional lives. Pets are a joy for the general authenticity of their feelings.
- justforyou 6y ago
  Siddhartha Gautama what evidence did you base that opinion on?
dreen 6y ago
It's true that drugs like MDMA or Mephedrone can cause an outpuring of feelings very much similar to what you feel when really loving someone (in my time in university, Mephedrone used to be called "The Big Love" by partaking students, it was legal then). However, a sober examination of those feelings after some time may reveal to you an underlying "fakeness", in the sense that what you were showing was not really a true image, but rather a caricature of your feelings. It does not mean that you do not genuinely like the person you declared "your true soulmate" while under the influence, but these words really mean nothing unless spoken sober. As sooon as you start messing with your brain chemistry, everything you say is being stripped of meaning as it becomes more driven by emotions and less by reason. At some point it's like trying to interpret dreams - there might be some emotional content there, but its not applicable in the real world more than just a cause for reflection (which is good) to find some true insights.
- a_imho 6y ago
  In vino veritas, is there a consensus whether under the influence is fake and being sober is the not fake state of things?
- teknopaul 6y ago
  "everything you say is being stripped of meaning as it becomes more driven by emotions and less by reason" Only if you believe emotions have no meaning. An emotional response is a valid one, even if it does not help your startup. Not all human affairs are about profit maximisation. Reason is not the best tool in your toolbox to use if you want to fall in love. mdma probably is.
  - dreen 6y ago
    Dont equate reason with capitalism, thats just silly. MDMA may cause you to experience a something and it might feel profound, but only through sober reflection on that experience are you able to learn anything. Don't get me wrong, I think these substances are worth trying out. I just wouldn't want to fall in love through a drug, it would not feel genuine.
  - donothing 6y ago
happy_tentacles 6y ago
Brings to mind a dark dystopian corner where this could take us - as imagined by Stanislaw Lem in his 1971 "The Futurological Congress" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress It is a short and highly recommended read.
- a_imho 6y ago
  I also recommend The Congress (2013) movie which is based on the novel.
User23 6y ago
Commonly used hormonal birth control does this already[1]. I assume if we routinely dosed men with sex hormones we’d see a change in male partner preferences as well. I’ve heard the claim that xenoestrogens already have, but I’m not sure if there is quality research on that. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007124358.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007124358.h...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rootsudo 6y ago
To be fair, this is nothing new - if you've hopped onto a few boards/forums that discussed this, or read any of Shulgins's books - https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605 https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulg... this has been a constant conversation that was semi-, not really, but kinda underground to people who persisted and wanted to explore this world. Erowid is a great history and collection of user reports, and from there you can look for other forums that share the same idea, concept of storytelling, experience telling, and even how to cultivate and probably synthesis things but the later part is what makes it more questionable to many people. :) -- MDMA is on the roadmap for regulation and being "legal" https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/56027/1/MDMA_Roadmap_To_Regulation-Digital-Copy-0512.pdf https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/56027/1/MDMA_Roadmap_To... https://beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MDMA_Roadmap_To_Regulation-Digital-Copy-0512.pdf https://beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MDM... -- The article though is quite dystopian for sure, talking about all the artificial side of drugs, meanwhile ignoring the big picture of "Life is already artificial." Finding ways to improve your empathy and your ability to love is not bad, never. But then you have things like "One possibility is that people will begin to see that love is something that is at least partly in our command. " Love is always in your command, always. I just can't agree with that affection and love aren't. -- And then the whole idea of relationships having to involve love is also new itself, most of the time relationships, marriage in history came out of need, not for "love." So who defines what love is?
- kristerv 6y ago
  This is what I come to HN for. Radically different viewpoint, well argumented, true to logic and heart.
- perfmode 6y ago
  conventional definitions cannot speak on absolute truths. you must define love for yourself.

Jesus christ this is so dystopian. I've always thought of love and fear as the main things that make humans human

082349872349872 6y ago
Many animals have a hypothalamus. Love[1] is more complicated but in my experience well within the behavioural range of many mammals, and potentially some birds. If we count maternal love, we'd get just about all K-strategists. [1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0908/7624/products/Webp.net-resizeimage-2020-05-21T125913.087_grande.jpg?v=1590029983 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0908/7624/products/Webp.ne...
- jusujusu 6y ago
  Love, dear, is strictly for the birds
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Love and fear are the least human I'd wager. They are mammalian in the case of love and even lower in the case of fear. It's rational thought that sets us apart, the rest is shared machinery. Some animals have _more_ emotional machinery than we do. (Orcas)
cleansingfire 6y ago
Emotions are in the most primitive parts of the brain, so I'm afraid this is exactly backwards. I'd suggest that our privilege as humans is to take our intellectual ability and use it to enrich our emotional lives. Cultivating empathy, expanding our sense of family, retraining cruel impulses and such. Loving well, so that love becomes more than lust and comfort. Take comfort that animals live rich emotional lives. Pets are a joy for the general authenticity of their feelings.
justforyou 6y ago
Siddhartha Gautama what evidence did you base that opinion on?

It's true that drugs like MDMA or Mephedrone can cause an outpuring of feelings very much similar to what you feel when really loving someone (in my time in university, Mephedrone used to be called "The Big Love" by partaking students, it was legal then). However, a sober examination of those feelings after some time may reveal to you an underlying "fakeness", in the sense that what you were showing was not really a true image, but rather a caricature of your feelings. It does not mean that you do not genuinely like the person you declared "your true soulmate" while under the influence, but these words really mean nothing unless spoken sober. As sooon as you start messing with your brain chemistry, everything you say is being stripped of meaning as it becomes more driven by emotions and less by reason. At some point it's like trying to interpret dreams - there might be some emotional content there, but its not applicable in the real world more than just a cause for reflection (which is good) to find some true insights.

a_imho 6y ago
In vino veritas, is there a consensus whether under the influence is fake and being sober is the not fake state of things?
teknopaul 6y ago
"everything you say is being stripped of meaning as it becomes more driven by emotions and less by reason" Only if you believe emotions have no meaning. An emotional response is a valid one, even if it does not help your startup. Not all human affairs are about profit maximisation. Reason is not the best tool in your toolbox to use if you want to fall in love. mdma probably is.
- dreen 6y ago
  Dont equate reason with capitalism, thats just silly. MDMA may cause you to experience a something and it might feel profound, but only through sober reflection on that experience are you able to learn anything. Don't get me wrong, I think these substances are worth trying out. I just wouldn't want to fall in love through a drug, it would not feel genuine.
- donothing 6y ago

happy_tentacles 6y ago

Brings to mind a dark dystopian corner where this could take us - as imagined by Stanislaw Lem in his 1971 "The Futurological Congress" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress It is a short and highly recommended read.

a_imho 6y ago
I also recommend The Congress (2013) movie which is based on the novel.

User23 6y ago

Commonly used hormonal birth control does this already[1]. I assume if we routinely dosed men with sex hormones we’d see a change in male partner preferences as well. I’ve heard the claim that xenoestrogens already have, but I’m not sure if there is quality research on that. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007124358.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007124358.h...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rootsudo 6y ago

To be fair, this is nothing new - if you've hopped onto a few boards/forums that discussed this, or read any of Shulgins's books - https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605 https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulg... this has been a constant conversation that was semi-, not really, but kinda underground to people who persisted and wanted to explore this world. Erowid is a great history and collection of user reports, and from there you can look for other forums that share the same idea, concept of storytelling, experience telling, and even how to cultivate and probably synthesis things but the later part is what makes it more questionable to many people. :) -- MDMA is on the roadmap for regulation and being "legal" https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/56027/1/MDMA_Roadmap_To_Regulation-Digital-Copy-0512.pdf https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/56027/1/MDMA_Roadmap_To... https://beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MDMA_Roadmap_To_Regulation-Digital-Copy-0512.pdf https://beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MDM... -- The article though is quite dystopian for sure, talking about all the artificial side of drugs, meanwhile ignoring the big picture of "Life is already artificial." Finding ways to improve your empathy and your ability to love is not bad, never. But then you have things like "One possibility is that people will begin to see that love is something that is at least partly in our command. " Love is always in your command, always. I just can't agree with that affection and love aren't. -- And then the whole idea of relationships having to involve love is also new itself, most of the time relationships, marriage in history came out of need, not for "love." So who defines what love is?

kristerv 6y ago
This is what I come to HN for. Radically different viewpoint, well argumented, true to logic and heart.
perfmode 6y ago
conventional definitions cannot speak on absolute truths. you must define love for yourself.