Been meaning to post this for ages, but life has been nuts. The second ~60% of this talk contains a bunch of the research I conducted into COMPASS Pathways in the last quarter of 2018. There have been many developments since then, but this talk provides the essential background on COMPASS and why it should be viewed as a bad actor. The first part of the talk is background about me and a bit about work the Nexus has done over the years. Many folks in the "psychedelic community" seemed to be unsure of why I actually care about this stuff as much as I do, so I wanted to give them some context. Hope to be more active here over the course of the year. Miss you wonderful folks Wiki • Attitude • FAQThe Nexian • Nexus Research • The OHTIn New York, we wrote the legal number on our arms in marker...To call a lawyer if we were arrested. In Istanbul, People wrote their blood types on their arms. I hear in Egypt, They just write Their names. גם זה יעבור
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Good to see you back. I havent had time to watch the entire talk yet, just the first 20 minutes or so. Just wanted to say I appreciate the way you articulate these kinds of issues within the psychedelic community. In their enthusiasm for encouraging more widespread use of psychedelics, some people seem to throw caution to the wind with respect to allowing big business to gain control over their distribution and use. There is always a price to pay when this happens.
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Thanks for this video. Unfortunately we live in a world where greed is rampant. The information that you share in the video is very important, and more people need to hear it. Keep putting your message out there. Your voice is needed. IT WAS ALL A DREAM
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Grey Fox wrote:Thanks for this video. Unfortunately we live in a world where greed is rampant. The information that you share in the video is very important, and more people need to hear it. Keep putting your message out there. Your voice is needed. Yeah, true. I can only second that.
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Thanks for the support, it's really appreciated. Been a pretty intense nine months. Hope to be writing some more soon Wiki • Attitude • FAQThe Nexian • Nexus Research • The OHTIn New York, we wrote the legal number on our arms in marker...To call a lawyer if we were arrested. In Istanbul, People wrote their blood types on their arms. I hear in Egypt, They just write Their names. גם זה יעבור
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Just wanted to chime in with another vote of support Been hoping to catch you (and others) at Garden States this year, but just too far to drive this time around Keep on truckin'
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It looks like I'll also be doing an APS event in Sydney on May 19th, but that's still getting worked out. Not sure where you're at and if Sydney is closer than Melbourne for you. That event should be focusing on DMT and some political stuff if everything gets lined up. Leaving for Mardi Grass Saturday, but drop me a line if either of those events are closer to you Wiki • Attitude • FAQThe Nexian • Nexus Research • The OHTIn New York, we wrote the legal number on our arms in marker...To call a lawyer if we were arrested. In Istanbul, People wrote their blood types on their arms. I hear in Egypt, They just write Their names. גם זה יעבור
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About the legitimacy of authority btw...i think that in many societies and definately western society there is a constant battle going on about exactly this issue. And there is a theory that i find rather convincing, that this has to do with upbringing: the so-called strict father model versus the nurturing parent model.
And the idea is that you have these two different ways of looking at the legitimacy of authority and rules, where on the one hand you have the idea that the authority of the parent (usually the father) isn't questioned and and everything else follows from that, and on the other hand you have the idea that you have to teach your childeren why certain rules are nessecary.
So the theory says basically that the way we look at authority is the result of our upbringing and what kind of family we grew up in.
And what i like about the theory is that 1-it explains why people, in what leaders they choose to follow, so often seem to act against their own best interest. But also 2-why authoritarian leadership is so often linked to seemingly useless or even counterproductive laws.
It is speculated that child sacrifices In pre-columbian cultures was among other things also a way for political leaders to display their power.
I think that counterproductive drug laws are a bit like those child sacrifices. They are a tool to establish dominance. So they are of great symbolic importance for people who follow the strict father model.
The flipside of this is that when authority can be questioned, these and other laws that serve only a symbolic purpose will disappear.
And there are plenty of people who believe you can, and in fact should ,always question authority.
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Well...I feel a bit psychoanalyzed but I get where you're coming from, I think. And while I've got a lot of love for my folks, I have no problem explaining to them the why's and how's I feel about what seemed like excessively authoritarian parenting to me. But yes, their approach definitely shaped my views around the legitimacy of authority, for sure! Here's an excerpt from an amazing book I'm currently reading, dealing with power asymmetry, as observed by Emile Durkheim back in 1893. The book is The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Zuboff wrote:Durkheim wrote:The most remarkable effect of the division of labor is not that it increases output of functions divided, but that it renders them solidary. Its role… is not simply to embellish or ameliorate existing societies, but to render societies possible which, without it, would not exist.… It passes far beyond purely economic interests, for it consists in the establishment of a social and moral order sui generis. Durkheim’s vision was neither sterile nor naive. He recognized that things can take a dark turn and often do, resulting in what he called an “abnormal” (sometimes translated as “pathological”) division of labor that produces social distance, injustice, and discord in place of reciprocity and interdependency. In this context, Durkheim singled out the destructive effects of social inequality on the division of labor in society, especially what he viewed as the most dangerous form of inequality: extreme asymmetries of power that make “conflict itself impossible” by “refusing to admit the right of combat.” Such pathologies can be cured only by a politics that asserts the people’s right to contest, confront, and prevail in the face of unequal and illegitimate power over society. In the late nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century, that contest was led by labor and other social movements that asserted social equality through institutions such as collective bargaining and public education. The transformation that we witness in our time echoes these historical observations as the division of learning follows the same migratory path from the economic to the social domain once traveled by the division of labor. Now the division of learning “passes far beyond purely economic interests,” for it establishes the basis for our social order and its moral content. The division of learning is to us, members of the second modernity, what the division of labor was to our grandparents and great-grandparents, pioneers of the first modernity. In our time the division of learning emerges from the economic sphere as a new principle of social order and reflects the primacy of learning, information, and knowledge in today’s quest for effective life. And just as Durkheim warned his society a century ago, today our societies are threatened as the division of learning drifts into pathology and injustice at the hands of the unprecedented asymmetries of knowledge and power that surveillance capitalism has achieved. Surveillance capitalism’s command of the division of learning in society begins with what I call the problem of the two texts. The specific mechanisms of surveillance capitalism compel the production of two “electronic texts,” not just one. When it comes to the first text, we are its authors and readers. This public-facing text is familiar and celebrated for the universe of information and connection it brings to our fingertips. Google Search codifies the informational content of the world wide web. Facebook’s News Feed binds the network. Much of this public-facing text is composed of what we inscribe on its pages: our posts, blogs, videos, photos, conversations, music, stories, observations, “likes,” tweets, and all the great massing hubbub of our lives captured and communicated. Under the regime of surveillance capitalism, however, the first text does not stand alone; it trails a shadow close behind. The first text, full of promise, actually functions as the supply operation for the second text: the shadow text. Everything that we contribute to the first text, no matter how trivial or fleeting, becomes a target for surplus extraction. That surplus fills the pages of the second text. This one is hidden from our view: “read only” for surveillance capitalists.19 In this text our experience is dragooned as raw material to be accumulated and analyzed as means to others’ market ends. The shadow text is a burgeoning accumulation of behavioral surplus and its analyses, and it says more about us than we can know about ourselves. Worse still, it becomes increasingly difficult, and perhaps impossible, to refrain from contributing to the shadow text. It automatically feeds on our experience as we engage in the normal and necessary routines of social participation. See also: Wiki • Attitude • FAQThe Nexian • Nexus Research • The OHTIn New York, we wrote the legal number on our arms in marker...To call a lawyer if we were arrested. In Istanbul, People wrote their blood types on their arms. I hear in Egypt, They just write Their names. גם זה יעבור
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Hey David,
Very thorough presentation, excellent work. Very well organized and articulated. It spoke to many I'm sure, on many levels.
A lot of what you cover here I've personally struggled for many years to effectively express. I think there are many out there who will agree, an articulate advocate is indispensable to any movement. For those of us who crave to contribute to the progress of this research but have no mode of deliverance outside of raw science, you are doing a great service.
Although, I must admit I am slightly concerned with how ideal this can all turn out. It seems as if we're at a crossroads stuck between progressive legalization and the spread of awareness, and the unfortunate possibility of being swept under the consumer market rug.
Hope your message is heard wide and far.
HC
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It seems that Usona making headway is good news here. They are a non-profit and just received breakthrough therapy designation for a psilocibyin based therapy. I'm not sure how they get their manufacturing grade and got around Compass' exclusivity agreement, but for an ignorant a person like me this seems like good news.
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