Enthusiastic sh.it.head

  • 2 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 9th, 2023
  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.worksOPtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What are your favourite Wayback Machine links?
    1·
    20 hours ago

    Me again.

    drtomorrow.com, 2001-02-01

    drtomorrow.com, 2014-05-17

    Epilogue

    Story

    It’s 2014. I’m writing an ill-conceived paper about LSD as a kind of ‘technological’ advancement in psychiatry and how that idea connects to themes in some American novels from the 1960s.

    While researching, I come across a blurb about Hollywood Hospital, a facility in Vancouver BC that conducted LSD trials with their patients. This eventually leads me to a finding aid for a collection of lecture notes at Purdue University’s Archives and Special collections, where I learned the last person known to have the hospital’s files was supposedly one Frank Ogden.

    Frank Ogden is an interesting character. A flight engineer during WWII, after the war he ran an airplane company at Toronto Island Airport. In 1961, after reading an article about LSD in a magazine he became interested in Hollywood Hospital’s activities. He sold his portion of the business, travelled to Vancouver and, in his words, “just knocked on the door”. With no medical background, but offering three months of free labour, medical director Dr. J. Ross MacLean hired him. Ogden took LSD under supervision twice, which was a relatively standard protocol for staff working with these patients. He then started working along side staff supporting these patients, which included ‘a large clientele from California’ - mostly said to be celebrities and the like looking for a kick.

    Fast forward. Ogden eventually transitions to a career as a futurist under the moniker Dr. Tomorrow, living in a houseboat in Vancouver. He did speaking engagements, wrote books, hosted a radio show, etc. He died at 92 on December 29th, 2012.

    Super interesting guy, and worth further digging into if you’re curious (I know I’m revisiting him now that I’ve written this, lol). But I noticed something interesting when I dug up his homepage. It was now redirecting to something called the Global Consciousness Project, a parapsychology initiative. This is a weird one - basically, the theory is that events causing widely experienced, shared emotions or attention could have an effect on the output of hardware random number generators, and fluctuations in output could be a measure of a ‘global consciousness’. It’s batshit, but fascinating at the same time. The questions I had at the time were “Why this, over anything else, as the redirect? What happened between May 3 2009 and February 17 2010 where this was the choice? Unrelated, but WHERE ARE THE FUCKING HOSPITAL FILES??”.

    I walked away. Ultimately, I had a paper to finish, and while fascinating this was becoming a timesink. But this man lives rent free in my head to this day

  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.workstoNews@lemmy.world•Evangelical church urges Trump admin to 'execute' LGBTQ Americans
    1·
    4 days ago

    There’s an in-universe argument to be made that the Devil has successfully corrupted the Christian church, its teachings and materials, and has for a long time. It’s not a new idea, though contexts have been different.

    Not a Christian myself, but I’d see loud propagation of this idea as an interesting counterforce to the current evangelical climate. For those folks who, for whatever reasons, remain Christians but think the outcomes of popular Christianity are fucked, this is a position to fight from.

    Anything that bolsters resistance against these particular chucklefucks is a good thing.

  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.workstoCanada@lemmy.ca•Canadians upset Carney caved to Trump over digital services tax
    1·
    9 days ago

    My two cents: Imagine you’re writing a polite (or not) note to your neighbour about something they or one of their family members is doing that is causing harm to your neighbourhood.

    State what you don’t like, why you don’t like it and implications, preferred paths forward, and outcome you’d like to see. If you know what your ‘neighbour’ campaigned on/the rhetoric they used, particularly if you voted for them, you can reference that (for example, “The Elbows Up movement united Canadians at a time of great uncertainty. It is incredibly discouraging to watch our representatives drop their guard against US interests with no regard for, and active hostility to, the interests of Canadians.” or whatever).

    If you want, you can close with the suggestion that should you feel they are not adequately advancing your interests as a constituent, they will not have your support in the next election. Taking from the neighbour analogy, think “If you don’t shape up, we’ll take this to the HOA (your fellow constituents) and kick your ass out.”

    How much good does this all ultimately do? Depends on who you ask, really. But as a Canadian you have the right to express your opinions and concerns to those who represent you in government - so say what you want heard. No matter the impact, it’s better than silence.

  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.workstoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What's it like to have a dream?
    3·
    17 days ago

    This is a pretty specific usage of the word trip. Most of the time when people say it, they mean they had an above-threshold psychoactive experience (usually in the context of psychedelics). Don’t get me wrong, depending on what and how much you take you can certainly trip and find yourself doing that stuff. But many people use ‘trip’ or ‘tripping’ to describe experiences that don’t reach that point.

    You sound experienced, so I’m curious how you landed on this definition of trip/tripping and what you called your experiences instead (if you use a casual term at all).