News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Do psychedelics make you liberal? Not always by pope_meat on Saturday September 04, 2021 @02:52PM (#28417978)
Perhaps it might be worth examining your views on animals some more, while your perspective isn't uncommon, it might be worth analyzing it somewhat, as there are also a lot of people who look at a pig or a wolf and have a very different experience. It's always good to understand yourself more, and hallucinogens are a heck of a tool to do that, if you can sort out the root of the issue. I suspect you might have stopped a bit short of the root cause (fear/uncertainty towards non-humans)

Could be wrong, but that's what jumped out at me.

Re:Do psychedelics make you liberal? Not always by somehnacct3757 on Monday September 06, 2021 @08:05AM (#28432866)
Yeah I have a similar experience to GP, a normalization of life value across species. But for me it manifests as a greater respect for life forms I normally take for granted, rather than a loss of respect for human life. I have trouble breaking branches off trees, pulling weeds, killing mosquitos after a trip. I still feel uneasy about it but have justifications to help.

I also see life in superstructures. Stand on a skyscraper rooftop deck and look down at the city. The city is alive. The roads are its arteries, the people its lifeblood.

Re:Do psychedelics make you liberal? Not always by Applejinx on Monday September 06, 2021 @08:55AM (#28433191)
I think it's quite possible to look at a wolf and see a creature with more powerful social dynamics and civilizedness than that of the human, by nature. Pack animals cooperate in ways that isolated predators don't, and as humans we live in a sort of strange halfway zone, neither fully pack animals nor fully individual predators. We get a little bit of everything.

It makes perfect sense to me if someone took acid, saw the fundamental weaknesses of human consciousness, and then jumped to the conclusion that people had to be ruled by their superiors because there would always be inferiors that had to be kept in their place. That's one possible conclusion to draw, particularly if you seek a hardcore rationalist perspective where everything can be created through self-will and rational thought, and there's nothing else.

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, but that's because I've studied chaos theory and artificial intelligence and the way evolution draws on diversity of population to surface useful traits out of a seething, unpredictable gene pool. As such, I can't look at the concept of 'inferiors' in the same way: to me, rationalist hierarchical systems mean 'local maximum, unable to further progress'. In short, a serious problem rather than a desirable state.

Could you get chaos theory just out of taking acid? Could you interpret evolutionary mechanics? I don't think taking acid will give you fundamentals like that. What it's gonna do is shake up what you already have, and this can lead to very interesting reformulations, but it's not giving you anything that you don't already, in some sense, have.

Re:Do psychedelics make you liberal? Not always by FredPret on Monday September 06, 2021 @09:09AM (#28433296)
Wolves cooperate more than humans?

Even when we compete, we cooperate on an enormous scale [0]

[0] https://fee.org/media/33856/i-pencil-final-proof-for-website...

Re:Do psychedelics make you liberal? Not always by mkr-hn on Monday September 06, 2021 @07:58AM (#28432826)
Same here. I see a wolf and see a giant puppy.

Evidence of their giant puppy nature:

https://twitter.com/nywolforg/status/1434488985066299395

https://twitter.com/nywolforg/status/1433949290485985280