3 ms·

Psychedelics desolve the conceptual prison your mind is in, the government made them illegal because they build those prisons. Charitably, you could argue a fu

Psychedelics desolve the conceptual prison your mind is in, the government made them illegal because they build those prisons. Charitably, you could argue a functional society involves some amount of indoctrination into a set of shared beliefs and a large percentage of people losing that indoctrination would destroy society. Could the US function if everyone was a pacifist, anti-capitalist, hippie? I think that was and still is the primary concern.

inigyou 2mo ago
Interestingly, we know the CIA tried to use psychedelics to make people become the opposite of hippies, and they failed. This was part of MKULTRA. They were banned shortly after this failure.
bushwart 2mo ago
Psychedelics can dissolve more than the mind's conceptual prisons, perhaps much more of the mind than one would like. How did the hippie-era stereotype of the burned out acid head disappear so quickly from popular culture?
- gchamonlive 2mo ago
  Kary Mullis is known to have used a lot of it and discovered PCR while off psychedelics. There's also the famous Hoffman's bycicle day. The stereotype is just that, and might be a result of lack of mental stimulation rather than LSD abuse, which is possibly the safest drug in terms of toxicity.
- scarecrowbob 2mo ago
  Why? Because it's not a very accurate stereotype. I do first aid at music festivals and volunteer at a free clinic that serves a homeless population. I see a lot of spun folks and folks in varying stages of "burned out" (to use the term from the stereotype). I'm still in EMT school, but I've had to work with a lot of folks having adverse reactions to these substances. Meth and alcohol, simply being poor, childhood trauma, getting into a bad medical situation, losing a job and not finding one; all of those things will put folks into some bad places. But most substance abuse, in my limited experience, comes down to various traumas folks get into and maybe some chemical predispositions. That's not how most of the folks I know who have had very adverse psychedelic experiences have gotten into those states. And it is generally a very transitory state. While there are long-term psychological effects from stuff like acid (and IME, MDMA, Ket, and Nitrous are worse physiologically than things like LSD, C2B, DMT, psilocybin, mescaline, etc), generally psychedelic substances lead people to doing less of those drugs over time and that has a very different effect than, say, alcohol and chronic poverty. Propaganda about these things has a hard time taking hold in the face of most folks lived reality.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Thank you for your service
- Anonbrit 2mo ago
  Why has the stereotype of the coked-out stock trader or ketamine addicted delusional billionaire not held the same place in popular culture? Vagely functional coke heads are very, very common in certain circles
mikert89 2mo ago
anyone i have met that did Psychedelics more than a few times, permanently changed their brain chemistry in a way that was obvious. sure they dissolve some kind of prison, but many people never make it back from that dissolution and end up somewhere worse
- virgil_disgr4ce 2mo ago
  > did Psychedelics more than a few times If you want to specify LSD, you should do that, not "psychedelics." There are many, many psychedelics. They have sometimes radical differences. You cannot generalize that word into "many people never make it back." That is flat-out wrong, not to mention harmful.
  - mikert89 2mo ago
    i disagree. i have a unique view of this type of drug use. i was part of a large social circle of psychedelic users, over the course of many years. i very rarely took part. i watched close friends change.
  - jdietrich 2mo ago
    >There are many, many psychedelics. They have sometimes radical differences. Psilocybin is a more selective 5-HT2A agonist than LSD and is more rapidly metabolised. At normal recreational or clinical doses, they really aren't very different. LSD isn't quite as well-researched as psilocybin as a psychiatric drug, but the data we have suggests that it isn't meaningfully different in terms of risks or benefits.
- bossyTeacher 2mo ago
  > anyone i have met that did Psychedelics more than a few times, permanently changed their brain chemistry in a way that was obvious. sure they dissolve some kind of prison, but many people never make it back from that dissolution and end up somewhere worse Way to generalise. I also know people who drank water, went to sleep and never woke up. Ego dissolution is dosage dependent and you don't need to reach that point to get positive benefits. Also, many people do psychdelics that probably shouldn't.

inigyou 2mo ago

Interestingly, we know the CIA tried to use psychedelics to make people become the opposite of hippies, and they failed. This was part of MKULTRA. They were banned shortly after this failure.

bushwart 2mo ago

Psychedelics can dissolve more than the mind's conceptual prisons, perhaps much more of the mind than one would like. How did the hippie-era stereotype of the burned out acid head disappear so quickly from popular culture?

gchamonlive 2mo ago
Kary Mullis is known to have used a lot of it and discovered PCR while off psychedelics. There's also the famous Hoffman's bycicle day. The stereotype is just that, and might be a result of lack of mental stimulation rather than LSD abuse, which is possibly the safest drug in terms of toxicity.
scarecrowbob 2mo ago
Why? Because it's not a very accurate stereotype. I do first aid at music festivals and volunteer at a free clinic that serves a homeless population. I see a lot of spun folks and folks in varying stages of "burned out" (to use the term from the stereotype). I'm still in EMT school, but I've had to work with a lot of folks having adverse reactions to these substances. Meth and alcohol, simply being poor, childhood trauma, getting into a bad medical situation, losing a job and not finding one; all of those things will put folks into some bad places. But most substance abuse, in my limited experience, comes down to various traumas folks get into and maybe some chemical predispositions. That's not how most of the folks I know who have had very adverse psychedelic experiences have gotten into those states. And it is generally a very transitory state. While there are long-term psychological effects from stuff like acid (and IME, MDMA, Ket, and Nitrous are worse physiologically than things like LSD, C2B, DMT, psilocybin, mescaline, etc), generally psychedelic substances lead people to doing less of those drugs over time and that has a very different effect than, say, alcohol and chronic poverty. Propaganda about these things has a hard time taking hold in the face of most folks lived reality.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Thank you for your service
Anonbrit 2mo ago
Why has the stereotype of the coked-out stock trader or ketamine addicted delusional billionaire not held the same place in popular culture? Vagely functional coke heads are very, very common in certain circles

mikert89 2mo ago

anyone i have met that did Psychedelics more than a few times, permanently changed their brain chemistry in a way that was obvious. sure they dissolve some kind of prison, but many people never make it back from that dissolution and end up somewhere worse

virgil_disgr4ce 2mo ago
> did Psychedelics more than a few times If you want to specify LSD, you should do that, not "psychedelics." There are many, many psychedelics. They have sometimes radical differences. You cannot generalize that word into "many people never make it back." That is flat-out wrong, not to mention harmful.
- mikert89 2mo ago
  i disagree. i have a unique view of this type of drug use. i was part of a large social circle of psychedelic users, over the course of many years. i very rarely took part. i watched close friends change.
- jdietrich 2mo ago
  >There are many, many psychedelics. They have sometimes radical differences. Psilocybin is a more selective 5-HT2A agonist than LSD and is more rapidly metabolised. At normal recreational or clinical doses, they really aren't very different. LSD isn't quite as well-researched as psilocybin as a psychiatric drug, but the data we have suggests that it isn't meaningfully different in terms of risks or benefits.
bossyTeacher 2mo ago
> anyone i have met that did Psychedelics more than a few times, permanently changed their brain chemistry in a way that was obvious. sure they dissolve some kind of prison, but many people never make it back from that dissolution and end up somewhere worse Way to generalise. I also know people who drank water, went to sleep and never woke up. Ego dissolution is dosage dependent and you don't need to reach that point to get positive benefits. Also, many people do psychdelics that probably shouldn't.