to be clear for the sheltered folks that don't know.
mushrooms won't make you see things like acid, or at least not in any dose considered reasonable. that's not the "hallucinations" people refer to, in context.
a mushroom hallucination is more like a period of temporary schizophrenia. the literature may use terms like "paranoia", but that's not really what it's about. the trip will turn you into a conspiracy theorist; you'll start piecing together things, making sense of things that never made sense before. when you wake up, you'll have to grapple with this: either you put together some nonsense (an example might be coming to the clear certainty that your partner must be cheating on you, then realizing when you come to that you were lost in a fantasy and they actually aren't), or you did make sense of something that alluded you. this is why you get people talking about epiphanies on trips; the same thing that makes you a delusional conspiracy theorist for a few hours could also make you a brilliant detective.
the problem is when these conspiracy theories become real in the presence of agitation. you do hear every once in a while about somebody going on a killing spree with a butcher knife due to a mushroom trip; it's infrequent, but it happens. if you do mushrooms, you should at least be prepared to have to deal with this, because it's going to happen.
but, you're not going to think you're talking to a unicorn or something. that's acid.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
i've done a fair amount of mushrooms in my life, but not since i've moved to windsor, and only once in the ten years before i left. in fact, i think i've only done them three times since i turned 21. i don't know how many times i did them in high school. 40? 50?
and, that's the thing with mushrooms, as well as acid: people legitimately grow out of it. i still smoke pot and drink beer, but i don't imagine that decriminalization would make me more likely to do mushrooms again. as adults tend to avoid it because it's kind of intense, decriminalization would be likely to fuel an underage market, which is maybe not terrible because they aren't habitual like marijuana or alcohol or nicotine, but is what it is, nonetheless.
you should not expect much of a legal market for this drug for adults.
i don't want to say to approach this with caution, exactly. i don't have any real opposition to decriminalizing. but, if you don't have the experience, trust me on this: a mushroom trip is a substantively more powerful experience than marijuana or alcohol, to the point that there's no comparison. i mean, you can argue that smoking a joint is kind of like taking two or three shots of vodka at once, only that it tends to last longer than the shots will. you'd have to eat a lot of marijuana to get tracers, and you'd have to go through some kind of dramatic alcohol poisoning to have something like a mushroom trip.
mushrooms will make you imagine things that aren't true; a part of the trip is the conspiracy theory. you may find yourself immobile at points, or lost observing geometric patterns unfolding in front of you. you might become unresponsive to others. while it might lead to euphoria, to suggest it can help cure depression would be dangerously misleading; what mushrooms do is heighten your existing emotional state, so it's only likely to get you euphoric if you're already in a good mood. if you take shrooms when you're having a bad day, the negativity you're feeling is actually going to end up amplified, and you're going to have a "bad trip". i am beyond skeptical of this research, and willing to call complete bullshit on it. 'shrooms are relatively safe if you're experienced and in a positive state when you do them, but they may lead to agitation and violence if you aren't, and you should not be treating them like they're some kind of medicine.
you can teach your kids to use alcohol and marijuana sparingly and responsibly; 'shrooms are in a different category, and you should be telling your kids to mostly avoid them. 'shrooms are only for special occasions...and only when you're sure the environment is safe.....
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/07/720828367/a-growing-push-to-loosen-laws-around-psilocybin-treat-mushrooms-as-medicine
and, that's the thing with mushrooms, as well as acid: people legitimately grow out of it. i still smoke pot and drink beer, but i don't imagine that decriminalization would make me more likely to do mushrooms again. as adults tend to avoid it because it's kind of intense, decriminalization would be likely to fuel an underage market, which is maybe not terrible because they aren't habitual like marijuana or alcohol or nicotine, but is what it is, nonetheless.
you should not expect much of a legal market for this drug for adults.
i don't want to say to approach this with caution, exactly. i don't have any real opposition to decriminalizing. but, if you don't have the experience, trust me on this: a mushroom trip is a substantively more powerful experience than marijuana or alcohol, to the point that there's no comparison. i mean, you can argue that smoking a joint is kind of like taking two or three shots of vodka at once, only that it tends to last longer than the shots will. you'd have to eat a lot of marijuana to get tracers, and you'd have to go through some kind of dramatic alcohol poisoning to have something like a mushroom trip.
mushrooms will make you imagine things that aren't true; a part of the trip is the conspiracy theory. you may find yourself immobile at points, or lost observing geometric patterns unfolding in front of you. you might become unresponsive to others. while it might lead to euphoria, to suggest it can help cure depression would be dangerously misleading; what mushrooms do is heighten your existing emotional state, so it's only likely to get you euphoric if you're already in a good mood. if you take shrooms when you're having a bad day, the negativity you're feeling is actually going to end up amplified, and you're going to have a "bad trip". i am beyond skeptical of this research, and willing to call complete bullshit on it. 'shrooms are relatively safe if you're experienced and in a positive state when you do them, but they may lead to agitation and violence if you aren't, and you should not be treating them like they're some kind of medicine.
you can teach your kids to use alcohol and marijuana sparingly and responsibly; 'shrooms are in a different category, and you should be telling your kids to mostly avoid them. 'shrooms are only for special occasions...and only when you're sure the environment is safe.....
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/07/720828367/a-growing-push-to-loosen-laws-around-psilocybin-treat-mushrooms-as-medicine
as i support a one state solution with equal rights for all and not a two state solution rooted in exclusion and ethnic nationalism, i actually don't think it's important whether the canadian embassy in israel is in jerusalem or tel aviv, although i might suggest that the employees on the ground may be safer in tel aviv in the short run.
i ended up sleeping until almost midnight, got up to eat twice and am now back to sorting through reviews for the day.
i should go get my replacement blood test sheet in the next few days, but it apparently isn't ready for pickup yet. as it is, i don't expect to go anywhere today at all.
let's hope i can get through most of the month before the next sleep. but we'll see how that goes.
i should go get my replacement blood test sheet in the next few days, but it apparently isn't ready for pickup yet. as it is, i don't expect to go anywhere today at all.
let's hope i can get through most of the month before the next sleep. but we'll see how that goes.
no. stop.
if i'm a conservative hindu or muslim from india or africa just off the plane for not that long, and i came here with some money to get a job that was waiting, i'm sort of disenfranchised off the cricket bat.
the conservatives may align more with my values of free markets and traditional values, but they're racist, and i don't really feel welcome at their events, even if the leadership insists i am.
the liberals may seem more welcoming, but i'm not a liberal, and i don't like their policies very much. high taxes, women's rights, restrictions on industry...this stuff is weird and foreign to me. i came here for the free markets.
if the ndp parks themselves in the middle of this and acts as a kind of a "young turks conservative" party that is both legitimately welcoming of newcomers and yet also interested in traditional and conservative value systems, it's going to find itself very appealing to a very large number of people. it may end up on the right in a technical sense, but it's going to take voters from both parties.
it's going to completely lose it's base of white activists, though.
i know that a lot of people are going to recoil at how i'm presenting this, but the data is clear enough, and i actually think this is healthy. the spectrum right now is full of redundancy and disenfranchisement. there's a lot of asians in canada, now, and they don't have the same cultural baggage; they don't fall along the same ideological, party lines. it's perfectly natural for them to organize along their own divisions.
in the long run, you end up with mergers or marginalizations. a centre-right ndp would eventually push the conservatives into the fringes, and help the liberals rediscover themselves. but, in the short run, it would be a healthy and democratic turn of events to enfranchise a set of voters that are maybe even less interested than they ought to be....
then, when their kids swing left, they do it for the right reasons, as they rebel against their conservative parents. and, i'll be here to cheer them on when they do....
if i'm a conservative hindu or muslim from india or africa just off the plane for not that long, and i came here with some money to get a job that was waiting, i'm sort of disenfranchised off the cricket bat.
the conservatives may align more with my values of free markets and traditional values, but they're racist, and i don't really feel welcome at their events, even if the leadership insists i am.
the liberals may seem more welcoming, but i'm not a liberal, and i don't like their policies very much. high taxes, women's rights, restrictions on industry...this stuff is weird and foreign to me. i came here for the free markets.
if the ndp parks themselves in the middle of this and acts as a kind of a "young turks conservative" party that is both legitimately welcoming of newcomers and yet also interested in traditional and conservative value systems, it's going to find itself very appealing to a very large number of people. it may end up on the right in a technical sense, but it's going to take voters from both parties.
it's going to completely lose it's base of white activists, though.
i know that a lot of people are going to recoil at how i'm presenting this, but the data is clear enough, and i actually think this is healthy. the spectrum right now is full of redundancy and disenfranchisement. there's a lot of asians in canada, now, and they don't have the same cultural baggage; they don't fall along the same ideological, party lines. it's perfectly natural for them to organize along their own divisions.
in the long run, you end up with mergers or marginalizations. a centre-right ndp would eventually push the conservatives into the fringes, and help the liberals rediscover themselves. but, in the short run, it would be a healthy and democratic turn of events to enfranchise a set of voters that are maybe even less interested than they ought to be....
then, when their kids swing left, they do it for the right reasons, as they rebel against their conservative parents. and, i'll be here to cheer them on when they do....
i would imagine that a paul manly from vancouver island would probably be a lumberjack. i appear to have been wrong - he'd rather plant trees than cut them down. canada's changing.
this is a byelection, so turnout was probably low. nonetheless, it is clearly a very good result for the greens. i pointed out a while ago that the greens were going to replace the ndp in the spectrum, as deindustrialization (and the subsequent collapse of unionized workers) gives way to a fundamental shift on the left towards sustainability. this is certainly a step in that direction.
it's healthy to see a three-party system open up in bc, though. what that means, in bc, provincially, is that you have the liberals on the right, the ndp in the centre and the greens on the left. this ends up complicated federally by the conservatives. so, who gets squeezed in that system? the liberals or the ndp?
if the ndp are becoming the new immigrant party, and they are, they are going to end up on the center-right, as a replacement for the old progressive conservative party, and as a reflection of the values of new immigrants. i'm not scare mongering. i believe in democracy - they should be represented, and neither of the old parties can really do it. but, with their abandonment of socialism, the ndp of the future will try to give you a kind of traditional conservativism without the racism; this is an evolution of multiculturalism, in a way that neither of the old parties can articulate. that mix of inclusion and conservatism means it's going to end up something like the democratic party in the states. and, they may be more successful running to the right of the liberals in the long term, too, as they try to carve out a space between the old parties.
but, that means that the new left in canada is the environmental movement. there is some evidence that the greens may leapfrog the ndp this election, and that's long overdue.
now, if they could just get rid of tipsy lizzy. by 2023. they'll need to.....
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/nanaimo-ladysmith-byelection-1.5125549
this is a byelection, so turnout was probably low. nonetheless, it is clearly a very good result for the greens. i pointed out a while ago that the greens were going to replace the ndp in the spectrum, as deindustrialization (and the subsequent collapse of unionized workers) gives way to a fundamental shift on the left towards sustainability. this is certainly a step in that direction.
it's healthy to see a three-party system open up in bc, though. what that means, in bc, provincially, is that you have the liberals on the right, the ndp in the centre and the greens on the left. this ends up complicated federally by the conservatives. so, who gets squeezed in that system? the liberals or the ndp?
if the ndp are becoming the new immigrant party, and they are, they are going to end up on the center-right, as a replacement for the old progressive conservative party, and as a reflection of the values of new immigrants. i'm not scare mongering. i believe in democracy - they should be represented, and neither of the old parties can really do it. but, with their abandonment of socialism, the ndp of the future will try to give you a kind of traditional conservativism without the racism; this is an evolution of multiculturalism, in a way that neither of the old parties can articulate. that mix of inclusion and conservatism means it's going to end up something like the democratic party in the states. and, they may be more successful running to the right of the liberals in the long term, too, as they try to carve out a space between the old parties.
but, that means that the new left in canada is the environmental movement. there is some evidence that the greens may leapfrog the ndp this election, and that's long overdue.
now, if they could just get rid of tipsy lizzy. by 2023. they'll need to.....
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/nanaimo-ladysmith-byelection-1.5125549
i don't see any particular reason why it's necessary to choose between kin selection and group selection as some kind of monolithic force. there's nothing wrong with arguing that insects operate on group selection, whereas mammals operate on kin selection; there's no reason to interpret evolution as an ethereal natural law that exists "out there" somewhere waiting to be discovered, and rather a lot of reason to conceive of it as driven by randomness and chance.
one of the things that bugs me about evolutionary biology right now is this tendency to assume that any kind of mutation is an adaptation, beneficial, a response and has a cause, and that it must be demonstrated otherwise, if it is the case. it's teleological, and the field is littered with it. but, it's not consistent with the basic scientific method, either. rather, when presented with a specific mutation, the null hypothesis should be that it's a consequence of drift, and you should be doing hypothesis testing on it to determine if there's evidence that it's actually an adaptation or not. the idea that you have to choose between these two models is coming from this similar place of mythologizing around evolution as something almost supernatural in scope.
in terms of human societies, i don't think there is really a serious debate at play. we kin select. artificially. that's obvious.
https://prospect.org/article/evolutionary-roots-altruism
one of the things that bugs me about evolutionary biology right now is this tendency to assume that any kind of mutation is an adaptation, beneficial, a response and has a cause, and that it must be demonstrated otherwise, if it is the case. it's teleological, and the field is littered with it. but, it's not consistent with the basic scientific method, either. rather, when presented with a specific mutation, the null hypothesis should be that it's a consequence of drift, and you should be doing hypothesis testing on it to determine if there's evidence that it's actually an adaptation or not. the idea that you have to choose between these two models is coming from this similar place of mythologizing around evolution as something almost supernatural in scope.
in terms of human societies, i don't think there is really a serious debate at play. we kin select. artificially. that's obvious.
https://prospect.org/article/evolutionary-roots-altruism
of course i'm all about mutual aid.
but mutual aid has to be mutual, which means you don't push for it if you're pretty sure you're not going to get it back. and, there has to be common cause to make sense of it, too. so, that means no mutual aid with fascists. obvious, right? but, is islam a fascist thought system or not?
i'm more willing to extend solidarity and support and aid to the people trying to escape islam than the people trying to establish it. that means solidarity for secularists in the middle east, and it means solidarity for atheists and secularists in the west, too. i would have common cause with a kid trying to escape their muslim parents, rather than the muslim parents trying to enforce themselves on the kid. and, of course, i'd say the same thing about christians, too.
so, it's a question of the poverty of the breadcrumbs one expects to receive in return for mutual aid with muslim groups, which isn't missing the point but rather clarifying it.
mutual aid is often attributed to kroptkin, which i think is at least useful, even if you can find somebody else older than him. what's forgotten is that kropotkin was a scientist and his concept of mutual aid as an anarchist social idea was actually a corollary of his evolutionary theory. dawkins doesn't like the comparison, but i think he's being obsequious to cultural censorship in denying it; his own work, as described for popular consumption in the film nice guys finish first, is really a clarification of the evolutionary concept of mutual aid, and an expansion of it to a modern treatment and understanding. using computer trials and game theory, he's able to demonstrate that successful social behaviour treats mutual aid as an assumption, but is also quick to deny it upon any sort of betrayal. one could argue that this is essentially a mathematical proof of the lesson that anarchists should have taken from their own struggles, most famously the difficult question of alliances in the spanish revolution, where they've had the best chance of serious implementation.
what that means is that you need to calculate where mutual aid is an effective strategy and where it's likely to lead to being taken advantage of and then adjust accordingly. and, i can't imagine how providing mutual aid to this system of dominance and oppression is going to lead to anything but a catastrophic outcome for people on the left, with leftist values and leftist aspirations. providing mutual aid to muslims can only lead to the undoing of any kind of leftist struggle.
but, it also follows that it is important to extend mutual aid to the people that you expect to return it, which very explicitly includes those that are trying to get out of the mental and physical grips of the religious system: apostates, queers, feminists, academics, anarchists, socialists, atheists, punks, rebels, lumpen and other people that are standing against what the religion stands for.
there was no reason for you to be confused about where i stand on this, and i'm happy to acknowledge that we may disagree, if you identify as a member of the "christian left" or as a theist or as a "progressive". i'm none of these things, and i've never claimed common cause with you, either. but, i hope that this clarifies my perspective - which is that of the anarchist or libertarian left, if slightly updated with the replacement of kropotkin with dawkins - if you were previously confused about it.
but mutual aid has to be mutual, which means you don't push for it if you're pretty sure you're not going to get it back. and, there has to be common cause to make sense of it, too. so, that means no mutual aid with fascists. obvious, right? but, is islam a fascist thought system or not?
i'm more willing to extend solidarity and support and aid to the people trying to escape islam than the people trying to establish it. that means solidarity for secularists in the middle east, and it means solidarity for atheists and secularists in the west, too. i would have common cause with a kid trying to escape their muslim parents, rather than the muslim parents trying to enforce themselves on the kid. and, of course, i'd say the same thing about christians, too.
so, it's a question of the poverty of the breadcrumbs one expects to receive in return for mutual aid with muslim groups, which isn't missing the point but rather clarifying it.
mutual aid is often attributed to kroptkin, which i think is at least useful, even if you can find somebody else older than him. what's forgotten is that kropotkin was a scientist and his concept of mutual aid as an anarchist social idea was actually a corollary of his evolutionary theory. dawkins doesn't like the comparison, but i think he's being obsequious to cultural censorship in denying it; his own work, as described for popular consumption in the film nice guys finish first, is really a clarification of the evolutionary concept of mutual aid, and an expansion of it to a modern treatment and understanding. using computer trials and game theory, he's able to demonstrate that successful social behaviour treats mutual aid as an assumption, but is also quick to deny it upon any sort of betrayal. one could argue that this is essentially a mathematical proof of the lesson that anarchists should have taken from their own struggles, most famously the difficult question of alliances in the spanish revolution, where they've had the best chance of serious implementation.
what that means is that you need to calculate where mutual aid is an effective strategy and where it's likely to lead to being taken advantage of and then adjust accordingly. and, i can't imagine how providing mutual aid to this system of dominance and oppression is going to lead to anything but a catastrophic outcome for people on the left, with leftist values and leftist aspirations. providing mutual aid to muslims can only lead to the undoing of any kind of leftist struggle.
but, it also follows that it is important to extend mutual aid to the people that you expect to return it, which very explicitly includes those that are trying to get out of the mental and physical grips of the religious system: apostates, queers, feminists, academics, anarchists, socialists, atheists, punks, rebels, lumpen and other people that are standing against what the religion stands for.
there was no reason for you to be confused about where i stand on this, and i'm happy to acknowledge that we may disagree, if you identify as a member of the "christian left" or as a theist or as a "progressive". i'm none of these things, and i've never claimed common cause with you, either. but, i hope that this clarifies my perspective - which is that of the anarchist or libertarian left, if slightly updated with the replacement of kropotkin with dawkins - if you were previously confused about it.
this seems way too simple to actually be reflective of the truth, but it underscores a concept of groupthink in the party base. the media is talking about things like "electability" and pointing to polls about the topic, but this is a kind of entrapment leading to what i think is probably a strawman: you asked them that (leading) question so you could say that. you didn't ask them about tribalism in the party.
there's no reason to think this is permanent. granted. but, it indicates that democrats may just not really want to deal with a lengthy primary - that they want continuity, unity and a common front. this isn't necessarily about "electability", but may actually be about hierarchy, and a desire to put the party first. it may be a kind of corporatism, or collectivism, that is about subsuming the interests of the individual into the interests of the collective; people might just not want to cause a ruckus, right now. in that analysis, biden is leading because he's seen as legitimate; he's the rightful heir, whereas bernie is a distant second in succession, and the rest of the field are upstarts and pretenders.
under that reading, perhaps sanders was ahead in the polls because the media told voters that sanders was ahead in the polls. and, perhaps biden is now ahead for the same reason.
if the base is interested in a policy discussion, that could change. if it isn't, it might not - and bernie needs to get out and register.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)