I’ve been wanting to ask this here for a while: is there any (active or dead) discussion thread or article or something on the (rational :D) use of psychoactive substances? I’ve been very cautiously experimenting myself, and this is the only online community that I respect and whose goals seem to be inline with my own. There seem to be several exceedingly good reasons to partake, while all of the negative ones can be significantly mitigated with knowledge and precaution.
I’m a chaotic good, compsci undergrad doing research. Psychoactives haven’t increased my research or programming productivity (yet); though the xkcd comic suggesting that alcohol may do so (http://xkcd.com/323/) seems to be true. It is very hard to ride that peak though.
I can make a small anecdotal contribution. Nothing in my life has had as profound an impact on my conscientiousness (i.e. fighting akrasia) as some of my more intensely positive drug induced experiences. This effect is typically profound for several days afterwards, and noticable for weeks. This is significant, for me at least, because akrasia seems to be much more limiting than my creativity or intelligence.
Regarding “peak experiences”:
May I suggest that, if you feel pretty comfortable with tryptamines already, you experiment with 1) smoked tryptamines and/or 2) using the harmala alkaloids.
I also encourage you to read 1) The Entheogen Review 2) The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 3) advanced drug discussion subforum of bluelight.ru
I’ve been wanting to ask this here for a while: is there any (active or dead) discussion thread or article or something on the (rational :D) use of psychoactive substances? I’ve been very cautiously experimenting myself, and this is the only online community that I respect and whose goals seem to be inline with my own. There seem to be several exceedingly good reasons to partake, while all of the negative ones can be significantly mitigated with knowledge and precaution.
I’m a chaotic good, compsci undergrad doing research. Psychoactives haven’t increased my research or programming productivity (yet); though the xkcd comic suggesting that alcohol may do so (http://xkcd.com/323/) seems to be true. It is very hard to ride that peak though.
I can make a small anecdotal contribution. Nothing in my life has had as profound an impact on my conscientiousness (i.e. fighting akrasia) as some of my more intensely positive drug induced experiences. This effect is typically profound for several days afterwards, and noticable for weeks. This is significant, for me at least, because akrasia seems to be much more limiting than my creativity or intelligence.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/11/is_it_rational_to_take_psilocybin/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/45u/a_rationalists_guide_to_psychoactive_drugs/
Regarding “peak experiences”: May I suggest that, if you feel pretty comfortable with tryptamines already, you experiment with 1) smoked tryptamines and/or 2) using the harmala alkaloids.
I also encourage you to read 1) The Entheogen Review 2) The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 3) advanced drug discussion subforum of bluelight.ru