TheAlchemist

I don't support disturbing the toad. People argue that it's "higher vibration" because it isn't from a lab, but that just doesn't make much sense to me. These folks who argue for using the natural frog secretions often say so because they see the value of the natural world and see it as highly intelligent. That's all good but I can't imagine the frog spirit or mother gaia or whatever to be very happy about imprisoning and extracting the secretions of these frogs. So, just leave the toad in peace and use the synthetic, cleaner version if anything. Here's Hamilton Morris talking about this, I think he makes a solid argument in favor of the lab-made version.

What does the devil need to make a deal with evangelical Christians? - Despise lgbtq+ people - Pretend to care about unborn babies That's really all that is needed for evangelicals to sign that deal with a passionate sense of duty. Similiar deals are easy to make with different voter bases. Just appeal to their central, heart issues and it wont really matter how much of devil you are outside of that.

This is a super fascinating topic to explore. First of all, I agree, all location is absolutely relative. This is the case with all objects that seem to be distinct and to have a distance from each other. This idea also stretches much further than relation between material objects. Here I wanna take the opportunity to explore the relation between the sense of identity and the sense of subjectivity, which is quite fascinating. This will sound obvious to some but I find its always to explore the fundamental questions of being conscious. Identity wants to locate itself in the symbolic realm in relation to other identities and the social structure. Example: Your name is a a concept that was imposed on you by your parents as a place to locate your identity (relative to other identities). Even if you choose a new name, you are still locating yourself in the symbolic social realm. Concepts like "man" "woman" "plumber" "muslim" "american" "human" "confident" etc. are all way to be distinct and distanced from other identities. This is the way identity aims to localize itself. So just like a pencil or a planet or a star doesn't have a location, neither does our sense of subjectivity. Identity is layered "on top of" subjectivity and provides a sense of location in relation to other identities and symbolic realms of language etc. This is why identity is in a sense important to navigate social reality. At the same time identity causes horrible problems when it is insisted on to relieve us from our subjectivity. In a sense, every object is alien to where it exists, nothing has its own "place". The same applies to us; whoever we think we are is alien to us. These relations between location and identity, subjectivity and space can be used to gain a ton of insight into all sorts of political and cultural situations too. For example, most ideologies appeal to the desire to "be located" in some way, appealing to (and creating) our desire to escape our subjectivity.

I think the lesson of Soviet Communism isn't that Marxism doesn't work, it is that any ideology with an absolute ideal that includes any utopistic idea of "salvation" of the individual from its struggle tends to lead to shit. So the critique of capitalism from Marx is extremely valuable. Yet we shouldn't try to "design" some better system. Even if we fully understand the limitations of capitalism, but then we channel that bubbling uncertainty and unknowing into designing some stupid capitalism 2.0, we will fall into the same traps. We gotta learn to sit with the discomfort of not knowing what we are supposed to do, without grasping for answers the moment we lose our ideological grounding. That's also why all those annoying people with humanities degrees who complain about the problems, present critiques, develop theories and philosophize, but provide no practical solutions are who we need to embrace and start listening to more.

That's not a surprising thing to hear from Leo. My understanding of his stance is that the same applies to money, a coffee table or your dad and so on to infinity. Jesus Christ being a social construct might be a shocking statement for a fundamentalist Christian to hear, but that's the kind of stuff you could expect to hear from Leo any day of the year, not just on Easter Sunday

The pills are known to be often significantly underdosed. Check out reddit r/2cb, there's a lot of important information like that there.

Poland has a large right-wing conservative Christian voter base that is targeted by a lot of populist politicians who can rile them up by stirring up their fears of other cultures. The refugee is the perfect scapegoat for people to blame for their problems and to shift attention away from internal issues. That is not to say there should be open borders or something though. There was also the unique case a couple years ago where immigrants were used as political tools by Belarus, pushing them around on the border. Of course there needs to be some kind of system in place to deal with that kind of situation. But also there is a solid reason for having these international refugee treaties. Who knows, maybe Poland could be in war one day, and they would probably really hope that other countries respect those treaties in that kind of situation. Imagine if ukrainian refugees were treated the way some of these frustrated guys fantasize about treating Syrians or Afghan refugees at the border.

I think none of my answers would be controversial to the average voter here in Finland. I think even some center and slightly right wing party supporters would get somewhat similiar results here. The average republican would basically be far right in my country.

One of my favorite countries to travel, but it's not for those who are looking for a sanitized comfortable experience. Go there to see all sides of humanity, the dark and the light. Talk to locals and be open, it can be very mind expanding. Many western people just like to make jokes about it and feed their prejudice to feel better about themselves, ignore them. You clearly have the curiosity and openness to be able to appreciate it. I can highly recommend it.

I agree, religion, especially in its fundamentalist forms often includes an absolute ideal that is seen as more important and valuable than even humanity itself. This provides the ground for justification for violence in the name of this absolute ideal. This is especially the case with forms of religious fundamentalism that are insecure about their status and act out of reactionary fear. Yet, if we just remove religion, we still have other forms of ideology, which present us with a lot of the same issues. We would just continue doing the same stuff, just in the name of a different absolute ideal. So the problem you raise is very very deep. It's a problem that is pretty much inseperable from the human condition and social reality itself. So that's why I'm inclined to believe that we need an ideology that both fully convinces us, yet fully confronts us with its own failure. The way it seems to me is that that's the only "way out" from this predicament. And even that is full of traps, and it can't really be done intentionally, since that would fail to be truly convincing. The ideology that both convinces us yet completely fails us would need to come about organically, which further complicates things.

Religion is not the problem, it is a symptom of the problem. And so are all forms of ideology, in which we are inescapably embedded, whether religious or not. Our modern ideologies just present themselves as being "post-ideological", which is of course just a facade that protects the ideology from failure and allows it to keep running. The question isn't even how to escape religion/ideology, but how to better understand how ideology functions. When we understand better how ideology functions, there is some possibility of failure. We are looking for the one successful ideology, when really we need the one that utterly convinces us, yet also utterly fails. Only total failure can bring something new. And we aren't there yet.

Now it all makes sense. Your new book will be "Das Kapital 2"

Was reading some Zižek today and he had this fascinating idea from way back in 2007. This is part of a larger point he was making but stands alone quite nicely too. Something like this could be crazy enough to work

Waking Life (2001) Mandy (2018) Good Time (2017) Mad God (2021) Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

Caffeine pills! It's likely mostly the caffeine that you are addicted to. You get the caffeine but much cheaper and without all the unnecessary junk. You should ve able to find them in 100mg pills in a pharmacy. Dissolve 1-2 in some fruit juice or something and enjoy that caffeine high! Although I think fruit juice is also really bad for health, it's just concentrated sugar water without any of the original fibers that were in the plant to slow down absorption.

Basic ibuprofen should work as a vasodilator (?) It has helped me

I don't fully understand the freedom of speech argument here. Musk isn't defending freedom of speech, he is defending the power of non-democratic actors like himself in regulating speech online. At least the supreme court positions require clearing some barriers to entry regarding ethics, professionalism and they are held accountable based on an agreed upon law. Mr. Musk has his position of power due to wealth and influence, which has nothing to do with democratic processes. Musk here wants to resist the rules of democratic nations to hold more power. Yet at the same time I was quite surprised and concerned about the suggestion to give a 9000$ fine on anyone caught using VPN to access twitter. That really is a very radical move, even China doesn't have such laws.

Wouldn't a postmodernist be highly skeptical of these stage theories like SD and 9 Stages? Aren't they a sort of grand meta-narrative that many of us here accept as true? If we apply the process of deconstruction to these stage theories, what remains? I'm curious because it seems like these stage theories aren't being put through the filter of deconstruction as much, they seem to remain as a kind of meta-narrative, where postmodernism is seen to be as just one stage in this grand arch. Postmodernism is seen as valuable, but partly only as a stepping stone to higher stages. It seems to me like a postmodern view would be highly skeptical of such narratives. Yet still, there could be a way forward from postmodernism, but it's hard for me to imagine it's something that can be modelled in such ways as these stage theories suggest.

I tried this on a dose of edibles and it did work quite well. It seems cannabis can help with body-awareness. I could sense my whole body at once as a whole. One buzzing and vibrating sensation of the body itself. It was quite interesting. In my explorations with cannabis it seems there is potential in it for body awareness, creativity, shadow work and what some would call "energy work", just becoming conscious of and aware of the flows of sensation and "energy" in the body. I find that edibles work especially well for these purposes. Cannabis does ask for full focus and intentionality, those energy surges that come up in the body can very easily be channeled outside towards gorging on food or chasing for pleasurable sensations, which it surely can elevate 100x. It seems cannabis can be very useful if done with serious intention and focus, basically treating it like you would a full-on psychedelic experience.

Plugging is the way to go with 2cb, but beware it is about twice as potent with that ROA compared to oral. Snorting is potent too but it is very painful, like a bee stinging inside your nose for 5-10 minutes, but for some it isn't that bad. Only consider snorting if you have the powder, pills will have too much filler. If you take it orally, you should have an empty stomach and some ginger for potential nausea. But it seems 2-cb is one of the few molecules where plugging really is by far the best ROA.

Paul Chek is also very experienced with 5-meo-dmt. I haven't heard him talk about those experiences much on his podcast but I think Leo could understand him and provide interesting perspectives

The most interesting would be a discussion with Bernardo Kastrup. He is running the Essentia Foundation to promote analytic idealism and has had some eccentric folks on too, not just academics. https://youtube.com/@essentiafoundation?si=xO_RE2B4cBtJJLNt

Usually Christians* don't mind some mockery, being "persecuted" is often actually an important part of the identity for many. Also, this forum is already very lenient in allowing all sorts of proselytizers and missionary type people to attempt to influence and convert people here. *I'm mostly referring to the fundamentalist evangelical Christian types here, who believe they know whats best for everyone and want everyone to think like them. Obviously there are many strains of Christianity and a diverse range of Christians who I have a lot of respect for. Ultimately, I think isn't wise or compassionate to mock someone's beliefs. Only in the case when someone is actively trying to convert or pressure or shame someone into changing their belief system into being a Christian; I think in that situation making some jokes and light mockery can be a solid defense mechanism.

I found this documentary quite fascinating and mind-expanding. Obviously the classic hippie fantasy of "I will go in the forest and mother nature will take care of me and give me everything I need" is mostly naive and would get you killed very quickly. This documentary shows quite a mature perspective on how hard the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is, you have to dedicate everything you got to do it. It's possible to survive in nature long term, but you have to develop serious mastery in dozens if not hundreds of different skills. Also, it's pretty much just impossible without depending on other humans; your tribe.

I genuinely empathize with how horrifying and traumatic that kind of hellish experience must have been. A raw and direct confrontation with a demonic entity and the reality of hell. What could be more horrifying? It sounds like you actually have quite a robust psyche to able to face something like that without totally losing and breaking your mind into pieces, to the point of significant dysfunction. At the same time however, I wonder if this is what happens if a shit ton of the shadow or unconscious material is confronted all at once. If it is a case of too much too soon, in a way that completely overwhelms the system of anyone that confronts such things, even resulting in significant trauma or PTSD. As I'm sure you know, this is one of the real dangers of psychedelics. There is no filter or defenses when you go deep enough, anything could appear. I'm also curious if you see these "demons" and hell realms as literal, separated metaphysical realms/entities that exist independently and have a power of their own. Or are they something like representations or symbols that embody and express the darkest aspects of reality in your view? I'm sure you can relate to the experience of facing something that initially causes terror and intense fear, but overtime through increased understanding and integration, you feel less intimidated by it. Do you think this could be the case with these demon and hell experiences? Or is it completely beyond any possibility of understanding or integration? I'm curious because I have had some similiar experiences, probably not to the level you describe, but still. I'm genuinely slightly open to the possibility that there are some things like hell realms and demons that cannot be faced and integrated/understood through reflection/contemplation and study but at the moment I find that possibility unlikely. It's also hard for me to believe that the cultural elements and influence from a a fundamentalist religious narrative when growing up wouldn't have an influence on how the mind interprets experiences like that. If I recall correctly from some messages we exchanged, we both have fundamentalist style Christianity influencing us from childhood.