Can you change your mind?

[Corpsey]

Pollan's book on psychedelics is called How To Change Your Mind. The argument being that taking psilocybin/LSD is one of the very few ways that an adult (lacking the plastic brain of children/teenagers) can change their mind.

I guess that's more about changing your mental processes rather than seeing a political issue a different way - but obviously those two things are linked.

 

[luka]

Polan did psychedelics about 6 times, just so he could write a book about it. Total joker.

 

[WashYourHands]

What do you expect? Give the guy 14-21grams of cubensis, put on an old Kenny Ken mix and see how he copes.

 

[constant escape]

However it may appear to those more well versed in these experiences, if the Pollen/NPR/corporate legitimization of psychedelics leads to people being helped out of otherwise incontrovertible psychic quandaries, how bad is it really?

 

[luka]

not convinced by that line of reasoning tbh.

 

[constant escape]

Plus, if the mind-opening is actually essential to the psychedelic experience, rather than merely contingent upon pre-existing beliefs, then wouldn't we benefit from as many people as possible recreationally having these experiences?

 

[constant escape]

not convinced by that line of reasoning tbh.

You're not convinced that the psychedelic experience can help you out of dark places, or you aren't convinced that this specific cultural/scientific movement will lead to such unencumberances?

edit: on a wider scale, that is.

 

[version]

Luka just hates people he thinks are lame intruding on his territory. He's a psychedelic fascist.

 

[luka]

If The Man's doling 'em out me and version ain't buying!

 

[blockhead]

as a marxist who didn't misinterpret grundrisse while hero-dosing on ketamine with my cybernetic pals in the 90s, i stick by my anti-labourism.

 

[constant escape]

Gatekeeper of the hermetic. The esoteric is arguably best, most purely, determined by natural selection, not artificial gatekeeping. With the latter, we get the bulky and stringent dogma, no? Its more in the interest of power, rather than in the interest of sophia or some such.

 

[luka]

Shrug

 

[constant escape]

If The Man's doling 'em out me and version ain't buying!

Hack The Man. Cater to his terms, in appearance, while smuggling in the truth under his nose.

 

[luka]

It doesn't work.

 

[constant escape]

That is the kind of tolerance-of-capitalism I think ought to be constitutive of a truly cosmic progressivism.

 

[luka]

Your cosmic progressivism means following the advice of your schools careers advisor!

 

[constant escape]

Nudge, steer the best practices, their best interests, into directions that enable widespread creativity. The first stage, the highly abstract stage, is just figuring out what is to be done in the most general sense possible. Once, if, that is done, then we can move onto the more concrete tactics. Until then we remain suspended in some stasis/workshop of idealism, as repulsive as it may be to some.

Your cosmic progressivism means following the advice of your schools careers advisor!

No it means acknowledging that this advise isn't entirely reducible to rubbish, that it is a fragmented and infantile attempt to articulate progress, an attempt, a cosmic and pre-human force, that is liable to glom into suboptimal value systems. The career advisor, however low resolution, purveys sides of the same shape that we all purvey sides of.

So yeah, it would be a mistake just to roll with their advice, but it would also be a mistake to disregard it in its entirety.

 

[WashYourHands]

They were all cunts this side of the pond. Anti-progress institutionalised.

Told me I’d be ‘perfect’ for working outdoors. So flattering, I love rain and guns.

 

[constant escape]

Think I got "bricklayer" as some optimal occupation.

 

[constant escape]

I'll take that lead, mr system, thank you very much, I'll start right now.