I personally can't stand Musk but for many he has become an Emmanuel Goldstein character that even the mention of his name causes the most extreme emotional disgust from all the exposure of this strange, algorithmic, Two Minutes Hate.
Sitting on top of all this is a system we have evolved that amplifies desire to such a degree that even the greatest comforts in human history are not enough for many.
Almost like an addiction to the desire for comforts. We are like alcoholics given a nearly unlimited supply of cheap rum who think what ails them is the inability to obtain as much top shelf vodka as they desire.
This is a well-established phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill. It's not a result of some conspiracy. It probably has a neurological basis and occurs among all people. It probably occurs among all living things.
It is interesting to me as my first acid trip was 30 years ago but I have never gained anything profound from the experience.
My best trips were at psytrance parties as peak experiences in terms of fun.
I have tripped many times alone in a dark room and basically gained nothing from the experience besides falling into an existential void.
Personally, from so much experiences, reading thousands of trip reports, most the psychedelic literature up to about 2005, I think the psychedelic experience is like a blank white canvas. Some people end up with a Monet painting experience and some people end up with a Dali painting experience. Some run into a Hieronymus Bosch the first time and never try it again. You can't really make overall statements about what the blank canvas is going to be before someone starts to paint.
For me, my best psychedelic experiences were better versions of my most fun nights drunk. Anything I have learned that is all that deep though I have learned from reading books.
Never having a psychedelic experience I think is like never being drunk. It is really missing out on an interesting life experience but at the same time it is not this profound loss.
Working out all these life problems like some kind of pyschotherapy session is for sure something that never happened to me. That just lead me to the existential void when attempted.
Yeah, you're right in that it is highly dependent on the person and the set and setting. For me, I went into that first experience seeking a catalyst for insight into the things that were holding me back in my life, and got it. Intention setting is super important, which is why in formal meditation practice and in yoga they teach you to set a samkalpa for your practice session [1].
I've certainly taken LSD and gone to a rave with 6k people before, but I usually end up wanting to go home to meditate after a while. Insight into that existential void (sunyata) is exactly what I'm seeking out. But there's of course nothing wrong with wanting to stay at the party and dance all night! They're both manifestations of the same thing if you can see it.
Do you really think Peter Thiel is so poorly read that he doesn't understand the difference between socialism and communism?
I actually think pointing this out is a tell of how unread a person is on the subject actually. I can't even count how many times I have read this statement online in my life.
In everyday use though outside a Marxist philosophy circle, socialism is used as a blanket term for collectivism of all sorts and communism is the pejorative word for the same thing.
It really is one of the greatest photographs of all time.
If it wasn't for tankman, this would have all been forgot about in the west by September 1989.
We also don't know enough about China in the west to not know it is like bringing up the Kent State shootings at every mention of the US national guard.
As if there was an article about the US national guard helping flood victims in 2025 and someone has to mention
"That is great but what about the Kent State shootings in 1970?!?"
I would think GPT5 is great at high school level math but what high school level math problems are not in the training data?
I think the problem is that GPT5 is not "memorising" but conversely that doesn't automatically mean it is "reasoning". These are human attributes that we are trying to equate to machines and it just causes confusion.
