Yes, he is doing something, but he is optimizing for signal rather than the true thing. Becoming a drug addict, developing schizophrenia, killing yourself—those are all costly signals of engaging with the abyss.
What? Michael Vassar has (AFAIK from Zack M. Davis’ descriptions) not taken drugs or promoted becoming a drug addict or “killing yourself”. If you hear his Spencer interview, you’ll notice that he seems very sane and erudite, and clearly does not give off the unhinged ‘Nick Land’ vibe that you seem to be claiming that he has or he promotes.
You are directly contributing to the increase of misinformation and FUD here, by making such claims without enough confidence or knowledge of the situation.
I’ve talked to Michael Vassar many times in person. I’m somewhat confident he has taken LSD based on him saying so (although if this turned out wrong I wouldn’t be too surprised, my memory is hazy)
I definitely have the experiencing of him saying lots of things that sound very confusing and crazy, making pretty outlandish brainstormy-style claims that are maybe interesting, which he claims to take as literally true, that seem either false, or, at least require a lot of inferential gap. I have also heard him make a lot of morally charged, intense statements that didn’t seem clearly supported.
(I do think I have valued talking to Michael, despite this, he is one of the people who helped unstick me in certain ways, but, the mechanism by which he helped me was definitely via being kinda unhinged sounding.)
I’ve talked to Michael Vassar many times in person. I’m somewhat confident he has taken LSD based on him saying so (although if this turned out wrong I wouldn’t be too surprised, my memory is hazy)
I would take bets at 9:1 odds that Michael has taken large amounts of psychedelics. I would also take bets at similar odds that he promotes the use of psychedelics.
What? Michael Vassar has (AFAIK from Zack M. Davis’ descriptions) not taken drugs or promoted becoming a drug addict or “killing yourself”. If you hear his Spencer interview, you’ll notice that he seems very sane and erudite, and clearly does not give off the unhinged ‘Nick Land’ vibe that you seem to be claiming that he has or he promotes.
You are directly contributing to the increase of misinformation and FUD here, by making such claims without enough confidence or knowledge of the situation.
(I have not engaged with this thread deeply)
I’ve talked to Michael Vassar many times in person. I’m somewhat confident he has taken LSD based on him saying so (although if this turned out wrong I wouldn’t be too surprised, my memory is hazy)
I definitely have the experiencing of him saying lots of things that sound very confusing and crazy, making pretty outlandish brainstormy-style claims that are maybe interesting, which he claims to take as literally true, that seem either false, or, at least require a lot of inferential gap. I have also heard him make a lot of morally charged, intense statements that didn’t seem clearly supported.
(I do think I have valued talking to Michael, despite this, he is one of the people who helped unstick me in certain ways, but, the mechanism by which he helped me was definitely via being kinda unhinged sounding.)
I would take bets at 9:1 odds that Michael has taken large amounts of psychedelics. I would also take bets at similar odds that he promotes the use of psychedelics.