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u/lukey · 4 pointsr/ranprieur

There are several things going on here!

One, I think "being high" from pot is actually a learned response, like any other skill, it takes time and practice. It takes several exposures to actually really understand the experience and get a full effect. No doubt, there's something biological to this. Over time, the effects get more noticeable. I've never really met anyone who had it completely work the first time. Everyone I know said the effect got initially bigger the more they did it (and then, past that point, you build up tolerance).

A second thing is that the effects are really profoundly different for each person. A friend of mine was heavily into chronic dope, and he would often smoke with (what he termed) people who were 'beginners'. Like, he'd share a joint, and the person he'd smoke with would be really knocked around, for example they would barf or become so intoxicated that they would be incoherent or non-functional. It didn't affect him nearly to the same extent. He could smoke 10X that amount and not get nearly as high. I've known at least three people who are really weird people unless they smoke dope, and with the dope they seem to become just like normal. Bottom line, some of this depends on how much you smoke, how often, how strongly it affects you and what your baseline state is like. The range of responses is huge.

Then, there's at least one other thing. I've met several people who have a specific drug that simply doesn't work at all on them. A friend of mine could take heroic, death-defying batches of psilocybin and they simply were inert. He would feel cheated or ripped off and it was very obvious he was 100% sober. He once accused me of faking the effects! If I took a tiny amount from that same batch, it was a mystical experience, so it wasn't that the drugs were counterfeit -- he just couldn't get high from mushrooms. That happens to me too, but only during the refractory period...mushrooms (taken all alone) don't work again for a few days duration right after you take them once (but you can ordinarily tweak that by adding some extra substances). I've known some people that get an effect from pot that outwardly seems like it's so incredibly mild it's almost non-existent. I actually think the pot that is available is getting a lot stronger, which makes me think that most people are less sensitive to it than I am, because it's almost unpleasantly strong to me now.

What's funny and interesting is that once you have experienced a drug, you can easily recall the experience/feeling of it, and what's more, you can be in a dream of being actually high while you sleep, which is basically the same as saying that you can repeat actually being high without the drug. In other words, your brain learns to get in the state once it discovers it.

My partner is a lot less experienced with drugs than I am, but I notice when she is high more than she notices. She's all forgetful and not making sense, while at the same time she feels she's not feeling it. I feel that there's a certain amount of inward observation about being high that's different from normal reality. Part of what you learn (with a first drug) is to have a kind of duality that you experience towards your introspection. Here's the sober part of my mind noticing the high part of my mind. This is different from actually just feeling or thinking one thing.

The absolute best drug experience from a first time use is from LSD. It actually works insanely well the first time you take it, it's an unavoidable and very potent experience. The problem with LSD is not the thing that everyone is scared of: bad trips. The problem is permanent insanity -- I really think it's a bit of a dangerous substance. Out of a small handful of people that I know who have done it, I personally know at least 4 or 5 people who became acid casualties and had actual damaging permanent brain changes, and none of those people were doing anything truly weird, just using it the way anyone else would. I don't really recommend it unless you are willing to take that risk. One or two normal trips don't guarantee that something won't eventually happen. To me I don't think the problems/risks are connected to what other people talk about...I don't think you have to be pre-disposed to anything to have a potential problem with it. Perfectly normal people still run risks.

It seems like the psychedelics (like Psilocybin, LSD, Ecstacy etc. and extremely strong pot) are substances that inhibit the thalamus in various ways. Basically, this is the part of your brain that is like a traffic light, which makes you only think one thought at a time versus multiple thoughts. If you soak your brain in enough of the right juices, you can definitely allow a lot more traffic. What actually ends up happening depends on the person. I knew one guy who became a really fluid skateboarder with the same drug that allowed someone else to talk about philosophy.

Drugs have been a really interesting thing for me. I've experienced synaesthesia, visual-, corporal- and auditory-hallucinations, many, many powerful insights into myself and the world. All the normal things like time-dilation, munchies, laughing, whatever. Also lots of mystical and religious experiences. I once made friends with a house cat and we went hiking together for about 3 hours in the forest. I even wrote an exam on LSD once and the professor turned my answer into a class lecture -- I guess I came up with a pithy way of integrating all the things that the course was about. I've entered states where it was like programming my own brain as if it was a computer. I've been an insect on an alien planet, and I've had a UFO encounter and found a successful way to talk a friend out of suicide. I've seen Jesus appear and saw him convince a friend of mine to become religious. I've run from the police while feeling like it was in slow-motion. I also invented a couple of legit mechanical devices. It also changes the way I see/hear and process music and art, where I can suddenly hear through distortion, understand mumbled words and see more symbolically, metaphorically etc. Pot also improved my sports performance, and I actually had some of my best ever competition results while being totally baked. A few pro athletes I know don't race unless they are quite high on pot -- it seems to improve reaction time and endurance.

I once tripped sitting beside a river, and I had every visual element (trees, ducks, kids, dogs et.) map into a very realistic miniature simulation of the overall human superstructure, where I could look down- or up- stream and get a coherent snapshot of the past, present and future. After the high went away, the mental model proved to be durable and rational and the insights probably still affect how I see things. The very first time I dosed on LSD, the drug kicked in while watching the normal TV news. I still cannot watch any TV without seeing the gears moving on the propaganda machine, it literally cured me of the hypnotic susceptibility you need to "get into" watching TV. However, I'm probably even more interested in movies now. The best book about exactly how I see movies is this one, the only difference is that movies are sequential in the same space where comics are spatially juxtaposed, but the book is highly recommended regarding how it works.

However, I basically don't do any drugs at all any more. I probably went through a period of beyond-average experimentation, but I found there are a lot of risks for me personally. I don't particularly enjoy being actually high, so for me, it's a tool only insofar as it helps me direct my life. One major thing is that using drugs turns me into a dreamer rather than someone really living my life -- this happens in a seductive way that's hard to notice. The way that my personality is, I need to actually focus on executing on real ideas rather than coming up with more and more possibilities or being in a state of creative flux all the time. As a professional creative, I have an endless stream of possible ideas all the time even when I'm totally sober, and drugs make that overwhelming to the extent I don't (and can't) get enough done. Drugs are super time-consuming.

u/johntara · 3 pointsr/ranprieur

Very Ivan Illichy, and perhaps someone can tell us/remind us what Illich saw as a way forward.

Kevin Kelly, cited in the Amish technology article, also had a chapter called 'The Unabomber was Right.' Cal Newport, whose article I posted, was more optimistic...he thought we could each take the Amish approach, but with our own values instead if those wacky Amish ones ( I think that's a little too individualistic).

I want to look at what is right about the Kelly/Unabomber perspective, then, what's missing.

What's right: if you frame things in terms of technological determinism v. Individual free will, then free will is dead in the water.

What's missing? First, there are specific actors at work here. Facebook is a huge culprit here. God how they lie and manipulate to insinuate themselves, capitalise on the network effects the above article talks about.

I recently read a great book The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford. One chapter describes how Casino operators justify their existence in terms of patrons' 'free choice' - yet systematically set out to erode said freedom of choice. The vision of punters sitting slack-jawed, pissed-pants, toothpick in the machine so it plays automatically, watching their balance until it runs to zero....it 's dystopian, but it's by design. Executives sit around and think about how to get people to 'play to extinction' this way. And Facebook are the same. The arseholes.

Crawford advocates taking 'free will' out of the debate, and I'd agree. Newport's 'personal values' won't save us, but I think such thing as a community of resistance is possible - you need to have others to connect with to create a kind of reverse network effect. That's why I read Newport, to hear about those people and businesses who are breaking out of the cycle.

There's a neat chapter in WBYH about a business involved in refurbishing and making authentic church organs....and their whole ethic is geared towards, 'what's this going to be like for the folks who come to refurbish this again in 400 years' time'. That's h a great community with an interesting hi-tech/lo-tech combo in the service of collective values...perhaps a better example than Amish. https://www.amazon.com/World-Beyond-Your-Head-Distraction/dp/0374535914

u/yiedyie · 1 pointr/ranprieur

Ran said:
> It's a fun metaphor, but to buy into it I'd have to see examples of how the old myths had symbiotic interconnections like species in an ecology, and how the new myths don't.

I will try to expand more and make the parallels further, symbiosis makes sure that not only there will be organisms that will be better adapted for its niche but that they can approach tougher niches, this way different organism fill as much as possible of the living-space.
 
 

Compare that what the organism of a mono-crop becomes: a product, and a product means that his life purpose is to get the attention of the buyer and be consumed as fast as possible.
 
 

If we take a simpler definition that for organisms symbiosis is a mutual improvement in life. For an ecological Mythos(world of myth) we would have a kind of synergy(symbiosis) that improves in meaning for each other.
 
 

From my experience with folklore, Hindu and budhist myths, ortodox christian myths I have a gut feeling that myths improve each other inside these traditions and myths don't get obsolete but just enhanced. Even with that experience I don't have the erudition nor the space to expand this with examples and an exposition.
Keeping the ecological metaphor is harder to see how well was a place ecology until that place is destroyed.
Since is harder to show this synergy(symbiosis) with older myths I will try to appeal to your experience with the modern incarnations of myths: the meme and the mono-myth.
 
 

The meme has the same shelf-life like any product and it competes for immediate attention, it is a modern myth by many arguments and in even in theory and in practice they are found to be selfish and replicate at the detriment of other memes or the bigger picture.
 
 

More reading on mono-myth critique, an ecology of myths and integral(hollistic) "mythos":
 
 

Giambattista Vico (1668—1744)

Wandering God: Morris Berman

Communities of the Heart: The Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K Le Guin
 
 

u/NoTimeForInfinity · 2 pointsr/ranprieur

I think everyone can relate to your 10 year old.

I find wonder and beauty in that, everything is cycles. We are part of something (many things) bigger than us. From the water cycle to the microbiome. We just don't understand the web of these relationships. I find some meaning in trying.

Can you design a mostly closed loop fish tank or terrarium? Ferment or bake things to eat?
We don't understand the life in a square inch of soil.

This book is great,but maybe too young for her:

https://www.amazon.com/Me-Dog-Gene-Weingarten/dp/1442494131?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1442494131

Physicist funeral:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=you+want+a+physicist+to+speak+at+your+funeral&atb=v107-1ma&tappv=android_5_1_0&t=ddg_android&iax=images&ia=images

There is only ever the meaning we create. Something is only sacred if you make it so.

I've been trying to come up with my own "sacred" traditions.

I see real value in different states of mind. I think they are even easier to achieve with honesty instead of dogma; large groups, drums, etc.

All hail Discordia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism

All life as we know it so far is based on one operating system and consciousness is a poorly rendered hallucination of reality.
We've started talking about entropy whenever my son says "forever". In a few years I hope he'll grok.

Now that I don't drink Cosmos/Carl Sagan Mr. Rodgers and the ISS live feed make me feel better.

u/ranprieur · 6 pointsr/ranprieur

There are all kinds of things that modern people do better than hunter-gatherers. Until recently this did not include sustainable food production, but now it sometimes does. I don't want to say that permaculture has a monopoly on these techniques, or that everyone who says they're doing permaculture is growing food sustainably, but under the "permaculture" umbrella you can find techniques that go beyond sustainability, that grow food densely while increasing soil fertility and leaving niches for wild animals and "weeds".

Some of these techniques are rediscoveries or reinventions of indigenous horticulture, in which forests have been actively managed for human benefit. Keeping It Living by Nancy Turner is a good book about this. But we can do even better with tools and techniques that are uncommon or unavailable among primitive people: soil testing, hugelkultur, intensive composting, steel shovels, grafting, long-distance trading of plants and seeds, and a global information network linking millions of innovators.

u/HTG464 · 1 pointr/ranprieur

In general, what links them together is:

  • caucasian male, 25-40 years old at the time of the Zodiac crimes
  • similar pathologies (social & sexual problems), going by the Zodiac's victimology (mostly attacking couples) and Kaczynski's known life history
  • above average intelligence
  • mechanical skills, especially bomb-making
  • use of elaborate ciphers (two of Zodiac's ciphers haven't been cracked yet)
  • obsessed with notoriety, media attention (both sent letters to major newspapers demanding the publication of some material)
  • similar handwriting, style, and composition

    Here are a few specific pieces of evidence linking Kaczynski to the Zodiac:

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    Kaczynski's facial features match the San Francisco composites of the Zodiac, especially the strong chin (this is a long shot, but composites are never perfect): link

    ---

    The similarity between the Zodiac symbol and a unit circle (note the marks drawn on the Zodiac symbol by the murderer himself that indicate it may not simply be a crosshair): link

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    The similarity between the Zodiac symbol and the graffiti used by Kaczynski as the Unabomber (based on descriptions by victims): link

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    The similarity of the diagrams drawn by Kaczynski and the Zodiac: link

    ---

    The clues embedded in the Zodiac's three part cipher, e.g. MATHITEACH, TEDANDDAVE (bolded, vertically): link

    ---

    The similarity of their handwriting, once blurred (can you tell the difference?): link

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    The same picture as above, unblurred (note how strongly similar the handwriting is): link

    ---

    The use of a horizontal freehand line to separate different sections of text: link

    ---

    The use of hanging indents to enumerate items (very mathematical): link

    ---

    There are many other pieces of indirect evidence that Kaczynski is the Zodiac. All the figures above are taken from this book, by the way. The free preview is worth reading. Of course, none of this is conclusive until we have hard evidence (which may never happen), but Kaczynski is by far the best Zodiac suspect, in my opinion.
u/artearth · 2 pointsr/ranprieur

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari writes about the birth of language as instrumental to human cooperation beyond the tribal level, including the capacity to create and share complex stories that create meaning for people beyond food, shelter and sex.

This ties into the idea of Egregores, autonomous psychic entities created from groupthink who take on a life of their own.

u/smile-bot · 1 pointr/ranprieur

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u/trevbillion · 1 pointr/ranprieur

Not all books, but if I had to choose only 5, these would be them: