“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.”
- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I know a lot more people whose lives have been deeply enriched by acid, than those who've ended up on the ends of those proverbial meat hooks.
That being said, casualties are real and can happen, it's great work that Psymposia is doing shining a light on the uncomfortable dark corners of psychedelic enthusiasm. Especially when it comes to corporate interests and influence in the space.
I hope that this time around, we can keep psychedelics in their right place as valuable tools for humanity. Not elevated to culty worship, nor demonized.
What most people fail to realize is that nature isn't humanoid in any capacity. I've lived long enough and seen enough synchronicities to know that reality is far more entangled than a cause and effect standpoint would have you believe. But nature being quite tightly coupled instead of locally isolated, doesn't mean nature has a humanoid intent. It just means that everything is connected. If the universe is a spider web, it doesn't do us any favors to assume we are being taken care of by some benevolent spider.
This video is the world we live in. It's difficult to watch a komodo dragon eat a pregnant deer. But I challenge you to watch this, because this is what reality actually is:
https://youtu.be/oHJuzE0k1V8
Reality is intimately connected through time and space. Reality is beautiful, dark, ruthless, dreary but it is not kind.
> I've lived long enough and seen enough synchronicities to know that reality is far more entangled than a cause and effect standpoint would have you believe.
I've no idea what you mean by that.
> This video is the world we live in.
Reality includes komodo dragons, just as it does kindness. You say nature isn't "humanoid" and then ascribe to it qualities like ruthlessness. You're just as biased and delusional as whoever you're criticizing.
> You say nature isn't "humanoid" and then ascribe to it qualities like ruthlessness.
Definition of kind: "having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature."
One can argue that non-humanoid processes or things are kind without violating basic precepts. For instance, a crane machine at an arcade might be viewed as kind or forgiving if its claws don't drop items so easily. Or the machine might be viewed as ruthless if its claws drop items all the time.
> You're just as biased and delusional as whoever you're criticizing.
Fucking rude, dude. My post wasn't criticism - it was an explanation..
Coincidentally someone mentioned this video to me the other day (this clip is eight seconds, but maybe you don't want to watch it):
"Tiger attacks mahout on elephant!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-3cFIuQBc
Spoiler: the mahout is OK although he had to go to the hospital. But what surprises me is that you literally can not see the tiger in a big grassy field until a couple of seconds before it leaps onto the guy on the elephant (although one commenter says he could spot it by the grass waving differently where the tiger is). So if you can actually see the tiger, you may be safer in that sense.
I was also very surprised that a tiger would attack someone on an elephant. I expected to see something more like this with the elephant deterring the tiger -- but that is in a different location without tall grass so the tiger can't get close enough to quickly ambush (given cats are mainly sprinters):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd-SROLWvAw
Or in the USA (where cougars and bobcats drop out of trees):
"Father fends off mountain lion that attacked his three-year-old son in California"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-cougar-attack-...
"Foy said that mountain lion attacks on humans were “extraordinarily rare,” noting that just 16 cougar attacks on people had been documented in California in the past 100 years."
So, that is some proof that your fears of large cats are definitely justified -- at least in certain contexts. It is prudent fears like that which have kept people alive for many thousands of years.
Black bears on the other hand, at least in the lower 48 states of US America, tend to be fairly shy and will almost always run away from you -- unless you are between them and a door to escape or between a mother and her cubs. This is because the black bears that did not were all killed long ago and probably eaten by humans. That is not so true up in Canada though, where bears -- especially grizzlies -- have not had that same level of selective pressure recently. Those you should be (prudently) scared of too.
Related:
https://bear.org/why-are-black-bears-so-timid/
"For hundreds of thousands of years—until about 10,000 years ago—North America was home to saber-toothed cats, American lions, dire wolves, and giant short-faced bears. Black bears didn’t stand a chance against any of these predators in a fight, but the black bear was the only one of them able to climb trees. Black bears stayed near trees and lived by the rule “Run first, ask questions later.” They develop a mind more like that of a prey animal than a predator. Today, the black bear’s timid attitude aids survival in the face of grizzly bears, timber wolves, and people."
Coyotes can be scary too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attack
"Coyote attacks on humans are uncommon and rarely cause serious injuries, but have been increasing in frequency, especially in the state of California. In the 30 years leading up to March 2006, at least 160 attacks occurred in the United States, mostly in the Los Angeles County area. Data from the USDA's Wildlife Services, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and other sources show that while 41 attacks occurred during the period of 1988–1997, 48 attacks were verified from 1998 through 2003. The majority of these incidents occurred in Southern California near the suburban-wildland interface."
Anyway, this is all is not completely idle curiosity for me as I live in a nature park with bears and bobcats and coyotes and such -- and was concerned especially about bobcats and coyotes when my kid was young.
Realistically though, dog attacks in the USA are way more common these days:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t...
"Fatal dog attacks in the United States cause the deaths of about 30 to 50 people in the US each year, and the number of deaths from dog attacks appears to be increasing. Around 4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs every year, resulting in the hospitalization of 6,000 to 13,000 people each year in the United States (2005)."
If you ever have been attacked by something, one possible way to deal afterwards with the trauma -- not involving psychedelics -- is Se-REM, an audio version of EMDR:
"A Self-Help Version of EMDR Could Make Healing from Trauma Easier"
https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/07/self-help-emdr/https://se-rem.com/
I wish he could've elaborated about this piece of writing. Does he mean all the people who took acid in the 60s are all burnouts? If one out of every ten people who dropped acid had an enriching experience and the rest got severe mental illness does that mean the acid movement failed?
As for the 'old-mystic fallacy' of acid, there are people who actually got enlightened from the stuff without having to spend ten years meditating in a monastery. As McKenna said: 'but the ferry costs a nickel'
You can indeed change the email / login on a user's profile an an org admin, but we probably won't know if Okta support agents themselves can also do that.
That's pretty common and wouldn't lead to a compromise. It's a potential DOS vector, yes, but not a compromise. However, I wonder if Okta tech support is also able to change a user's registered email...
To not share how you secure anonymity is to rely on security by obscurity. Now I think it’s better to lay out the playbook using Kerchkoff’s principle so k will become far larger than 150. Remember… to improve anonymity, at some point you have to publish your private keys. And where better than Hacker News?
The playbook is yours. Improve it!
Step 1: try to break it. Post how you’d defeat the anonymization scheme. The threat model is that you’re all state level actors combined. I’d love to see what you come up with.
Thought experiment: What would have happened if the hackers had distributed the funds among millions of wallets held by regular people - including wallets owned by police officers, judges and other government officials? Would it be possible/feasible to confiscate the illicitly acquired funds? Would people even want that after receiving a bribe they couldn't technically refuse?
Yeah, there's a certain irony to the fact that crypto currencies will remain subordinate to the powers that be until they themselves become the powers that be (at which point, of course, any elements of crypto-anarchy and cypherpunk would be long gone).
The credentials of the expert don't determine whether or not the statement is an appeal to authority.